Col. Ingersoll began, "Only a few years ago the pulpit was almost
supreme. The palace was almost in the shadow of the cathedral, and the
power behind every throne was a priest. Man was held in physical
slavery by kings, and in a mental prison by the church. He was allowed
to hold no opinions as to where he came from, nor as to where he was
going. It was sufficient for him to do the labor and believe the kings
would do the governing and the priests the thinking--and, my God, what
thinking! If the world had obeyed the priests we would all be idiots
tonight. The eagle of intellect would have given way to the blind bat
of faith. They were the rack, the faggot, the thumbscrew in this world,
and hell in the next. Only a few years ago no man could express an
honest thought unless he agreed with the church. The church has been a
perpetual beggar. It has never plowed, it never sowed, it never spun,
yet Solomon in all his glory was not so arrayed. Thanks to modern
thought, the brain of the nineteenth century, to Voltaire, Paine, Hume,
to all the free men, that beggar--the church--is no longer upon
horseback; and it fills me with joy to state that even its walking is
not now good. Only a little while ago a priest was thought more than
human. Nobody dared contradict the minister. Now there are other
learned professions. There are doctors, lawyers, writers, books,
newspapers, and the priest has hundreds of rivals.
The priest grew jealous, hateful; he was always thankful for an
epidemic or pestilence, so that people would turn to him in despair.
In our country all the men of intellect were in the pulpit once. Now
there are so many avenues to distinction the men of brain, heart and
red blood have left the pulpit and gone to useful things. I do not say
all. There are still some men of mind in the pulpit, but they are
nearer infidels than any others. Where do we get our ministers? A
young man, without constitution enough to be wicked, without health
enough to enjoy the things of this world, naturally, fixes his gaze on
high. He is educated, sent to a university where he is taught that it
is criminal to think. Stuffed with a creed, he comes out a shepherd.
Most of them are intellectual shreds and patches, mental ravelings,
selvage. Every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a convict; every
member of the church stands over him with a club, called a creed. He
is an intellectual slave, and dare not preach his honest thought.
There are thousands of good men in the pulpit, honest men. I am simply
describing the average shepherd; they tell me "they've been called,"
that Almighty God selected them. He looked all over the world and said:
"Now, there's a man I want!" And what selections! Shakespeare was not
called. Yet he has done more for this world than all the ministers who
have ever lived in it. Beethoven! He was not called. Raphael was not
called. He was all an accident. All the inventors, discoverers,
poets--God never called one of them; he turned his attention to popes,
cardinals, priests, exhorters; and what selections he has made! It's
astonishing.
In the United States a great many ministers have been good enough to
take me for a text. Among others the Rev. Mr. Talmage, of Brooklyn. I
have nothing to say about his reputation. It has nothing to do with
the question. Some ministers think he has more gesticulation than
grace. Some call him a pious pantaloon, a Christian clown; but such
remarks, I think, are born of envy. He is the only Presbyterian
minister in the United States who can draw an audience. He stands at
the head of the denomination, and I answer him. He's a strange man. I
believe he's orthodox, or intellectual pride would prevent his saying
these things. He believes in a literal resurrection of the dead; that
we shall see countless bones flying through the air. He has some
charges against me, and he has denied some of my statements. He has
produced what he calls arguments, and I am going to answer some of the
charges. Next Sunday afternoon, at 2 o'clock; in this place, I shall
have a matinee, and answer his arguments. He says I am the champion
blasphemer. What is blasphemy? To contradict a priest? to have a
mind of your own? Whoever takes a step in advance is a blasphemer.
Blasphemy is what a last year's leaf says to a this year's bud. To
deny that Mohammed is the prophet of God is not blasphemy in New York.
It is in Constantinople. It is a question, then, largely of Geography.
It depends on where you are. The missionary who laughs at a modern God
is a blasphemer. In a Catholic country whoever says Mary is not the
mother of God is a blasphemer. In a Protestant country to say she is
the mother of God is blasphemy. Everything has been blasphemy. My
doctrine is this: He is a blasphemer who refuses to tell his honest
thought; who is not true to himself; who enslaves his fellow man; who
charges that God was once in favor of slavery. If there is any God,
that man is a blasphemer. They're afraid we'll injure God. How? Is
infinite goodness and mercy to become livid with wrath because a finite
being expresses an opinion? I cannot help the infinite. That man only
is the good man who helps his fellow man. I know then who would do
anything for God, who doesn't need it, but nothing for men, who do need
it. Why should God be so particular about my believing his book? It's
no more his work than the stars of gravitation. Yet I may declare that
the earth is flat, and he'll not damn me for that. But if I make a
mistake about that book I'm gone. I can blaspheme the multiplication
table and deify the power of the wedge--in fact, the less I know the
better my chance will be. I say that book is not inspired, and there
is no infinitely good God who will damn one human soul. At the
judgment, if I am mistaken I own up--I am here, I do not know where I
came from, nor where I am going--I'll be honest about it. I am on a
ship and not on speaking terms with the captain, but I propose to have
a happy voyage, and the best way is to do what you can to make your
fellow passengers happy. If we run into a good port, I'll be as happy
an angel as you'll meet that day. Blasphemy is the cry of a defeated
priest--the black flag of theology--it shows where argument stops and
slander and persecution begin. I am told by Mr. Talmage that whoever
contradicts this word is a fool, a howling wolf, one of the assassins
of God. I presume the gentleman is honest. Take Mr. Talmage, now, he
is a good man. Mr. Humboldt, he was another good man. What Humboldt
knew and what Talmage didn't know would make a library.
The next charge is that I have said the universe was made of nothing,
according to the bible. False in one thing, false in all, he says.
Think of that rule. Let us apply that to man. If the world was
created, what was it make of? and who made that? If the Lord created
it, what did He make it of? Nothing. That's all He had. No sides, no
top, nothing. Yet God had lived there forever. What did He think
about? What did He do? Nothing. Nothing had ever happened. All at
once He made something. What did He make it of? Mr. Talmage explains.
He says if I knew anything I would know that God made this world out of
His omnipotence. He might just as well made it out of His memory.
What is omnipotence? Is it a raw material? The weakest man in the
world can lift as much nothing as God. Yet He made this world out of
His omnipotence. It is so stated by a doctor of divinity, and I should
think such divinity would need a doctor! I don't believe this. I
believe this universe has existed throughout all eternity--everything.
All that is, is God. I do not give to that universe a personality that
wants man to get his knees into dust and his fingers in holy water;
that wants some body to ring a bell or eat a wafer. I am a part of
this universe, and I believe all there is, is all the God there is. I
may be mistaken; I don't know. I just give my best opinion. If
there's any heaven, I'll give it there. But there'll be no discussion
in heaven. Hell is the only place where mental improvement will be
possible.
I have said, it is charged, that the bible says the world was made in
six days. He says I don't understand Hebrew. The bible says the world
was made in six days. God didn't work nights--evening and morning were
the first day. God rested on the seventh day, and sanctified it.
That, they say, didn't mean days; it meant good whiles. He made the
world in six good whiles. Adam was made, I think along about Saturday.
If the account is correct, it's only 6,000 years since man made his
appearance. We know that to be false. A few years ago a gentleman who
was going to California in the cars met a minister. They came to the
place called the Sink of the Humboldt, the most desolate place in the
world. Just imagine perdition with the fire out. The traveler asked
the minister whether God made the earth in six days, and the minister
said he did. Then don't you think, said he, He could have put in
another day's work to great advantage right here? I am charged, too,
with saying that the sun was not made till the fourth day, whereas,
according to the bible, vegetation began on the third day, before there
was any light. But Mr. Talmage says there was light without the sun.
They got light, he says, from the crystallization of rocks. A nice
thing to raise a crop of corn by. There may have been volcanoes, he
says. How'd you like to farm it, and depend on volcanic glare to raise
a crop? That's what they call religious science. God won't damn a man
for things like that. What else? The aurora borealis! A great
cucumber country! It's strange He never thought of glow worms!
Imagine it! a Presbyterian divine gravely saying vegetation could grow
by the light of the crystallization of rocks--by the light of volcanoes
in other worlds, probably now extinct.
He says of me, too in his pulpit, that I was in favor of the
circulation of immoral literature. Let me tell you the truth. Several
gentlemen, so-called, were trying to exclude from the mails, books
called infidel. I said the law should be modified. It is impossible for
anybody to reach the depth of one who will print or circulate obscene
books. One of my objections to the bible is that it contains obscene
stories. Any book, couched in decent language, should have the liberty
of the United States mails. Where books are immoral and obscene, I
say, burn them, and have always said it. Mr. Talmage said what he knew
to be untrue. He said it out of hatred, and because he cannot answer
the arguments I have urged. I believe in pure books and pure
literature. But when a God writes there is no excuse for Him. In
Shakespeare we say obscene things are impure--we do not say they are
inspired. That I have falsified the records of the bible showing the
period of Jewish slavery, is another of the charges against me. That
slavery extended over a period of 215 years; and he proceeded to
substantiate this statement by being through a long and somewhat
complicated genealogical table. If I made any misstatement I was
misled by the new testament. Mr. Talmage may settle with St. Paul. If
you can depend on what my friend Paul says, the Jews, in 215 years,
increased from seventy persons till they had 600,000 men of war. I
know it isn't so, and so does any man who knows anything. For such an
increase as this each woman must have borne somewhat over fifty-seven
children, and every child lived.
The next charge is that I have laughed at holy things. Holy things!
The priest always says: "Now don't laugh; look solemn; this is no
laughing matter." There's nothing a priest hates like mirthfulness. He
despises a smile. I read in the bible that God gave a recipe to Aaron
for making hair-oil and said if anybody made any like it, kill him.
Well, I don't believe it. The penalty for infringing on that patent
was death. Do you believe an infinite God gave a recipe for hair-oil?
Is it possible for absurdity to go beyond that? That's what they call
a holy thing. And water for baptism! Do you believe God will look for
this water-mark on the soul?
The next charge is that I misquote the scriptures. That's because I
don't know Hebrew. Why didn't He write to me in English? If He wishes
to hold a gentleman responsible, why doesn't He address him in his
native tongue? Why write His word in such a way that hundreds of
thousands make their living explaining it? If I'd only understood
Hebrew I would have known God didn't make Eve out of a rib. He made
her out of Adam's side. How did He get it out? Well, I suppose He cut
it out with a kind of a splinter of His omnipotence! Then our mother
was made from a rib. When you consider the material used it was the
most successful job ever done. There's even a serpent in the bible
that knows a language. It won't do. Sin, how did it come into the
world? Where did the serpent come from? He was wicked. Adam's sin did
not make him bad. Then there was sin in the world before Adam.
There's no sense in it--not a particle. Then Talmage touches me upon
the flood. His flood didn't come to America, because America was not
discovered then. He says it was a partial flood. Then why did they
have to take any birds in the ark? How did Noah get the animals in the
ark? Talmage says it was through the instinct to get out of the rain.
According to the bible they went in before the rain began. Dr. Scott
says the angels helped carry them in. Imagine an angel with an animal
under each wing. It must have rained 800 feet a day for forty days.
Why does Talmage try to explain a miracle? The beauty of a miracle is
it cannot be explained. The moment the church begins to explain the
church is gone. All it's got to do is swear it is so. The ark landed
on Ararat, which is 17,000 feet high. There was only one window,
twenty-two inches square. Talmage says the window ran clear around the
ark. The bible doesn't say so. That's Brooklyn; that's no bible.
If the bible account is true the ark must have struck bottom on the top
of a mountain. Would any but a God of mercy and kindness people a
world, and then drown them all? A God cruel enough to drown His own
children ought not to have the impudence to tell me how to bring up
mine. Why did He save eight of the same kind of people to take a fresh
start? Why didn't He make a fresh lot, kill His snake, and give His
children a fair show? It won't do.
Talmage says the bible does not favor polygamy and slavery. There was
room enough on the table of stone for saying man should only have one
wife and no slaves. If not, God might have written it on the other
side. David and Solomon were pursued of God, but they had a pretty
good time of it. Most anybody would be willing to be pursued that way.
There is not a word in the old testament against slavery or polygamy.
Frederick Douglas, a slave in Maryland, is the greatest man that state
ever produced. He was enslaved by Christians. Why did God pay so much
attention to blasphemers, and so little to slaveholders and robbers? I
am opposed to any God that was ever in favor of slavery. The bible
upholds polygamy, and that's the reason I don't uphold the bible. The
most glorious temple ever erected is the home--that's my church. I've
misquoted the story of Jonah, Talmage says. When somebody had been
guilty of blasphemy the winds rose; they tried to get Jonah ashore, but
couldn't do it. The sea waxed. He was swallowed by a whale. The
people of Minerva wrapped all their cattle up in sack-cloth, and if
anything would have pleased God I should think that would. Jonah sat
under a gourd, and God made a worm out of some omnipotence he had left
over, and set it work on the ground. Talmage doesn't think Jonah was
in the whale's belly--he said in his mouth. Well, judging from the
doctor's photograph, that explanation would be quite natural to him.
He says he might have been in the whale's stomach, and avoided the
action of the gastric juice by walking up and down. Imagine Jonah,
sitting on a back tooth, leaning against the upper jaw, longingly
looking through the open mouth for signs of land! But that's scripture
and you've got to believe it or be damned. Let me say his brother
preachers will not thank Talmage for his explanations. I don't believe
it, and if I am to be damned for it, I'll accept it cheerfully.
They say I was defeated for Governor of Illinois because I was an
infidel, and that I am an infidel because I was defeated. That's
logic. Now I'll tell you. They asked me whether I was an infidel, and
I said I was! I was defeated. I preserved my manhood and lost an
office. If everybody were as frank as I was, some men now in office
would be private citizens. I would rather be what I am than hold any
office in the world and be a slimy hypocrite.
Next they say I slandered my parents because I do not believe what they
believed. My father at one time believed the bible to be the inspired
word of God. He was an honorable man, and told me to read the bible
for myself and be honest. He lived long enough to believe that the old
testament was not the word of God. He had not in his life as much
happiness as I have in one year. I hope my children will dishonor me by
being nearer right than I am. If I have made a mistake, I want my
children to correct it. My mother died when I was 2 years old. Were
she living tonight, or if she does live, she would say, be absolutely
true to yourself and preserve your manhood. If Talmage had been born
in Constantinople he would have been a dervish. He is what he is
because he can't help it. His head is just that shape. I am taking
away the hope and consolation of the world, he says. His consolation
is that ninety-nine out of every hundred are going to hell. His church
was founded by John Calvin, a murderer. Better have no heaven than a
hell. I would rather God would commit suicide this minute than that a
single soul should go to hell. I want no Presbyterian consolation, I
want no fore-ordination, no consolation, no damnation.
[Col. Ingersoll concluded with a few remarks about the bible women,
saying that women today are as true to the gallows as Mary Magdalene
was to the cross.]
Wherever there are women there are heroines. Shakespeare's women are
vastly superior to the bible women. I am accused of putting out the
light-houses on the shores of the other world. The Christians are
trimming invisible wicks and pouring in allegorical oil. The Christian
is willing wife, children and parents shall burn if only he can sing
and have a harp. Mr. Talmage can see countless millions burn in hell
without decreasing the length of his orthodox smile.