Ladies and Gentlemen: "What have I said?" "What has been my offense?
I have been spoken of as if I were a wolf endeavoring to devour the
entire fold of sheep in the absence of the shepherd." I believe in the
trinity of observation, reason and science; the trinity of man, woman
and child; the trinity of love, joy and hope; and thought that every
man has a right to think for himself, and no other man has the right to
debar him of this privilege by torture, by social ostracism, or any of
the numerous other expedients resorted to by the enemies of
advancement. I ask: "Does God wish the lip-worship of a slave? a
sneak? of the man that dares not reason? If I were the infinite God, I
would rather have the worship of one good man of brains than a world of
such men. I am told that I am in danger of everlasting fire, and that
I shall burn forever in hell: I tell you, my friends, if I were going
to hell tonight I would take an overcoat with me. Do not tell me that
the eternal future of a man may depend upon his belief, I deny it.
That a man should be punished for having come to an honest conclusion,
the honest production of his brain; that an honest conclusion should be
deemed a crime and so declared, it is an infamous, monstrous assertion,
and I would rather go to hell than to keep the company of a God who
would damn his child for an honest belief.
"Next, I 'preached' that a woman was the equal of man, entitled to
everything that he is entitled to, to be his partner, and to be
cherished and respected because she is the weaker, to be treated as a
splendid flower. I said that man should not be cross to her, but fill
the house that she is in with such joy that it would burst out at the
window. I have said that matrimony is the holiest of sacraments, and I
have said that the bible took woman up thousands of years ago and
handed her down to man as a slave, and I have said that the bible is a
barbarous book for teaching that she is a slave, and I repeat it, and
will prove later what I have said. I have pleaded for the right of
man, of wife, and of the little child; I have said we can govern
children by love and affection; I have asked for tender treatment for
the child of crime; I have asked mothers to cease beating their
children and take them to their hearts; and for this I am denounced by
the religious press and men in the pulpits as a demon and a monster of
heresy, who should be driven out from among you as an unclean thing.
"But I should not complain. Only a few years ago I should have been
compelled to look at my denouncers through flame and smoke; but they
dare not treat me so now or they would. One hundred years ago I should
have been burned for claiming the right of reason; fifty years ago I
should have been imprisoned and my wife and children would have been
torn away from me, and twenty-five years ago I could not have made a
living in the United States in my profession--the law. But I live now
and can see through it all, and all is light. I delivered another
lecture, on "Ghosts," in which I sought to show that man had been
controlled in the past by phantoms created by his own imagination; in
which the pencil of fear had drawn pictures for him on the canvass of
superstition, and that men had groveled in they dirt before their own
superstitious creations. I endeavored to show that man had received
nothing from these ghosts but hatred, blood, ignorance and unhappiness,
and that they had filled our world with woe and tears. This is what I
endeavored to show--no more. Now, every one has as much right to
differ with me as I with them, but it does not make the slightest
difference for the purpose of argument whether I am a good man or a
bad, whether I am ugly or handsome--although I would not object to
resting my case on that issue; the only thing to be considered and
discussed is, is what I have said true, or is it untrue?
"Now, I said that the bible came from the ghosts, and that they gave us
the doctrine of immortality of the soul, which I deny. Now, the
immortality of the soul, if there is such a thing, is a fact, and
therefore no book could make it. If I am immortal, I am; if not, no
book can make me so. The doctrine of immortality is based in the hope
of the human heart, and is not derived from any book or creed. It has
its origin in the ebb and flow of the human affections, and will
continue as long as affection, and is the rainbow in the sky of hope.
It does not depend on a book, on ghosts, superstition of any kind; it
is a flower of the human heart. I did say that these ghosts, or the
book, taught that human slavery was right, that most monstrous of all
crimes, that makes miserable the victim and debases the master, for a
slave can have all the virtues while the master can not. I did say
that it riveted the chains upon the oppressed, and that it counseled
the robbing of that most precious of all boons--Liberty. I add that
the book upheld all this, that it sustained and sanctified the
institution of human slavery. I did also assert that this same book,
which my critics claim was inspired by God, inculcated the doctrine of
witchcraft, for which people, through its teaching were hanged and
burned for bringing disease upon the regal persons of kings, and for
souring beer. I did say that this book upheld that most of all
infamies, polygamy, and that it did not teach political liberty or
religious toleration, but political slavery and the most wretched
intolerance. I did try to prove that these ghosts knew less than
nothing about medicine, politics, legislation, astronomy, geology and
astrology, but I am also aware that in saving these things I have done
what my censors think I ought not to have done. But the victor ought
not to feel malice, and I shall have none. As soon as I had said all
these things, some gentlemen felt called upon to answer them, which
they had a right to do. Now, I like fairness, am enamored with it,
probably because I get so little of it. I can say a great many mean
things, for I have read all the religious papers, and I ought to be
able to account for every motive in a mean manner after.
"The first gentleman whom I shall call your attention to is the Rev.
Dr. Woodbridge. It seems that when I delivered my lectures the
conclusion had come to "that man does not believe in anything but
matter and force--that man does not believe in spirit." Why not? If
by spirit you mean that which thinks, I am one of them myself. If you
mean by spirit that which hopes and reasons and loves and aspires, why,
then, I am a believer in spirits; but whatever spirit there is in this
universe I will take my oath is a natural product and not superimposed
upon this world. All I will say is that whatever is, is natural, and
there is as much goodness in my judgment, as much spirit here in this
world as in any other, and you are just as near the heart of the
universe here as you ever can be.
But, they say, "there is matter and force, and there is force and there
is spirit." Well, what of it? There is no matter without force. What
would keep it together unless there was force? Can you imagine matter
without force? Honor bright, can you conceive of force without
matter? And what is spirit? They say spirit is the first thing that
ever was. It seems to me sometimes as though spirit was the blossom
and fruit of all, and not the commencement. But they say spirit was
first. What would that spirit do? No force--no matter--a spirit living
in an infinite vacuum without side, edge or bottom. This spirit
created the world; and if this spirit did, there must have been a time
when it commenced to create, and back of that an eternity spent in
absolute idleness. Can a spirit exist without matter or without force?
I honestly say I do not know what matter is, what force is, what spirit
is; but if you mean by matter anything that I can touch, or by force
anything that we can overcome then I believe in them. If you mean by
spirit anything that can think and love, I believe in spirits.
"The next critic who assailed me was the Rev. Mr. Kalloch. I am not
going to show you what I can withstand. I am not going to say a word
about the reputation of this man, although he took some liberties with
mine. This gentleman says negation is a poor thing to die by. I would
just as lief die by that as the opposite. He spoke of the last hours
of Paine and Voltaire and the terrors of their death-beds; but the
question arises, is there a word of truth in all he said? I have
observed that the murderer dies with courage and firmness in many
instances, but that does not make me think that it sanctified his
crime; in fact, it makes no impression upon me one way or the other.
When a man through old age or infirmity approaches death the
intellectual faculties are dimmed, his senses become less and less, and
as he loses these he goes back to his old superstition. Old age brings
back the memories of childhood. And the great bard gave in the corrupt
and besotted Falstaff--who prattled of babbling brooks and green
fields--an instance of the retracing steps taken by the memory at the
last gasp. It has been said that the bible was sanctified by our
mothers. Every superstition in the world, from the beginning of all
time, has had such a sanctification. The Turk dying on the Russian
battlefield, pressing the Koran to his bosom, breathes his last
thinking of the loving adjuration of his mother to guard it. Every
superstition has been rendered sacred by the love of a mother. I know
what it has cost the noble and the brave to throw to the winds these
superstitions. Since the death of Voltaire, who was innocent of all
else than a desire to shake off the superstitions of the past, the
curse of Rome has pursued him, and ignorant protestants have echoed
that curse. I like Voltaire. Whenever I think of him it is as a plumed
knight coming from the fray with victory shining upon his brow. He was
once in the Bastille, and while there he changed his name from Francis
Marie Aloysius to Voltaire; and when the Bastille was torn down
"Voltaire" was the battle cry of those who did it. He did more to
bring about religious toleration than any man in the galaxy of those
who strove for the privilege of free thought. He was always on the
side of justice. He was full of faults and had many virtues. His
doctrines have never brought unhappiness to any country. He died as
serenely as anyone could. Speaking to his servant, he said, "Farewell
my faithful friend." Could he have done a more noble act than to
recognize him who had served him faithfully as a man? What more could
he wished? And now let me say here, I will give a $1,000 in gold to
any clergyman who can substantiate that the death of Voltaire was not
as peaceful as the dawn. And of Thomas Paine, whom they assert died in
fear and agony, frightened by the clanking chains of devils, in fact,
frightened to death by God--I will give $1,000 likewise to anyone who
can substantiate this absurd story--a story without a word of truth in
it. And let me ask, who dies in the most fear, the man who, like the
saint, exclaims: "My God, my God! why hast thou forsaken me?" or
Voltaire, who peacefully and quietly bade his servant farewell? The
question is not who died right, but who lived right. I look upon death
as the most unimportant moment of life, and believe that not half the
responsibility is attached to dying that is to living properly. This
Rev. Mr. Kalloch is a baptist. He has a right to be a baptist. The
first baptist, though was a heretic; but it is among the wonders that
when a heretic gets fifteen or twenty to join him he suddenly begins to
be orthodox. Roger Williams was a baptist, but how he, or anyone not
destitute of good sense, could be one, passes my comprehension. Let me
illustrate:
Suppose it was the Day of Judgment tonight and we were all assembled,
as the ghosts say we will be, to be judged, and God should ask a man:
"Have you been a good man?"
"Yes."
"Have you loved your wife and children?"
"Yes."
"Have you taken good care of them and made them happy?"
"Yes."
"Have you tried to do right by your neighbors?"
"Yes."
"Paid all your debts?"
"Yes."
And then cap the climax by asking:
"Were you ever baptized?"
Could a solitary being hear that question without laughing? I think
not. I once happened to be in the company of six or seven baptist
elders (I never have been able to understand since how I got into such
bad company), and they wanted to know what I thought of baptism. I
answered that I had not given the matter any attention, in fact I had
no special opinion upon the subject. But they pressed me and finally I
told them that I thought, with soap baptism was a good thing.
The Rev. Mr. Guard has attacked me, and has described me, among other
things, as a dog barking at a train. Of course he was the train. He
said, first, the bible is not an immoral book, because I swore upon it
when I joined the Free and Accepted Masons. That settles the question.
Secondly, he says that Solomon had softening of the brain and fatty
degeneration of the heart; thirdly, that the Hebrews had the right to
slay all the inhabitants of Canaan according to the doctrine of the
survival of the fittest. He says that the destruction of these
Canaanites, the ripping open by the bloody sword of women with child
was an act of sublime mercy. Think of that! He says that the
Canaanites should have been driven from their homes, and not only
driven, but that the men who simply were guilty of the crime of
fighting for their native land--the old men with gray hairs; the old
mothers, the young mothers, the little dimpled, prattling child--that
it was an act of sublime mercy to plunge the sword of religious
persecution into old and young. If that is mercy, let us have
injustice. If there is that kind of a God I am sorry that I exist.
Fourthly, Mr. Guard said God has the right to do as he pleases with the
beings he has created; and, fifthly, that God, by choosing the Jews and
governing them personally, spoiled them to that degree that they
crucified Him the first opportunity they had. That shows what a good
administration will do. Sixthly, He says polygamy is not a bad thing
when compared with the picture of Anthony and Cleopatra, now on
exhibition in this city. I will just say one word about art. I think
this is one of the most beautiful words in our language, and do you
know, it never seemed to me necessary for art to go into partnership
with a rag? I like the paintings of Angelo, of Raphael--I like those
splendid souls that are put upon canvas--all there is of human beauty.
There are brave souls in every land who worship nature grand and nude,
and who, with swift, indignant hand, tear off the fig leaves of the
prude. Seventhly, it may be said that the bible sanctions slavery, but
that it is not an immoral book if it does. Mr. Guard playfully says
that he is a puppy nine days old; that he was only eight days old when
I came here. I'm inclined to think he has over stated his age. I
account for his argument precisely as he did for the sin of Solomon,
softening of the brain, or fatty degeneration of the heart. It does
seem to me that if I were a good Christian and knew that another man
was going down to the bottomless pit to be miserable and in agony
forever, I would try to stop him, and instead of filling my mouth with
epithet and invective, and drawing the lips of malice back from the
teeth of hatred, my eyes would be filled with tears, and I would do
what I could to reclaim him and take him up in the arms of my affection.
The next gentleman is the Rev. Mr. Robinson, who delivered a sermon
entitled 'Ghost against God, or Ingersoll against Honesty.' Of course
he was honest. He apologized for attending an infidel lecture upon the
ground that he hated to contribute to the support of a materialistic
showman. I am willing to trade fagots for epithets, and the rack for
anything that may be said in his sermon. I am willing to trade the
instrument of torture with which they could pull the nails from my
fingers for anything which the ingenuity of orthodoxy can invent.
When I saw that report--although I do not know that I ought to tell
it--I felt bad. I knew that man's conscience must be rankling like a
snake in his bosom, that he had contributed a dollar to the support of
a man as bad as I. I wrote him a letter, in which I said: "The Rev.
Samuel Robinson, My Dear Sir. In order to relieve your conscience of
the stigma of having contributed to the support of an unbeliever in
Ghosts, I herewith enclose the dollar you paid to attend my lecture."
I then gave him a little good advice to be charitable, and regretted
exceedingly that any man could listen to me for an hour and a half and
not go away satisfied that other men had the same right to think that
he had.
The speaker went on to answer the argument of Mr. Robinson with regard
to persecution, contending that protestants had been guilty of it no
less than catholics; and showing that the first people to pass an act
of toleration in the new world were the catholics in Maryland. The
reverend gentleman has stated also that infidelity has done nothing for
the world in the development of art and science. Has he ever heard of
Darwin, of Tyndall, of Huxley, of John W. Draper, of Auguste Comte, of
Descartes, Laplace, Spinoza, or any man who has taken a step in advance
of his time? Orthodoxy never advances, when it does advance, it ceases
to be orthodoxy.
A reply to certain strictures in the Occident led the lecturer up to
another ministerial critic, namely, the Rev. W.E. Ijams.
I want to say that, so far as I can see, in his argument this gentleman
has treated me in a kind and considerate spirit. He makes two or three
mistakes, but I suppose they are the fault of the report from which he
quoted. I am made to say in his sermon that there is no sacred place
in the universe. What I did say was: There is no sacred place in all
the universe of thought; there is nothing too holy to be investigated,
nothing too sacred to be understood, and I said that the fields of
thought were fenceless, that they should be without a wall. I say so
tonight. He further said that I said that a man had not only the right
to do right, but to do wrong. What I did say, was: "Liberty is the
right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to think
wrong," not the right to do wrong. That is all I have to say in regard
to that gentleman, except that, so far as I could see, he was perfectly
fair, and treated me as though I was a human being as well as he.
The speaker sarcastically referred to the slurs thrown upon him by his
reviewers, who have claimed that his theories have no foundation, his
arguments no reason, and that his utterances are vapid, blasphemous,
and unworthy a reply. He said that their statements and their actions
were sadly at variance, for, while declaring him a senseless idiot,
they spent hours in striving to prove themselves not idiots; in other
words, in one breath they declare that his views were absolutely
without point, and needed no explaining away; while in direct rebuttal
of this declaration, they devoted time and labor in attempts to
disprove the very things they called self-evident absurdities.
Turning from this subject, Mr. Ingersoll read numerous extracts from
the bible, with interpolated comments. He claimed that the bible
authorized slavery, and that many devoted believers in that book had
turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post. He did not wish it
understood that he could find no good in believers in creeds; far from
it, for some of his dearest friends were most orthodox in their
religious ideas, and there had been hundreds of thousands of good men
among both clergy and laymen. History has shown no people more nobly
self-sacrificing than the Jesuit Fathers who first visited this country
to proselyte among the Indians. But these men and their like were
better than their creeds; better than the book in which their faith was
centered. The bible tells us distinctly that the world was made in six
days--not periods, but actual, bona fide days--a statement which it
iterates and reiterates. It also tells us that God lengthened the day
for the benefit of a gentleman named Joshua, in other words, that he
stopped the rotary motion of the earth. Motion is changed into heat by
stoppage, and the world turns with such velocity that its sudden
stoppage would create a heat of intensity beyond the wildest flight of
our imagination, and yet this impossible feat was performed that Joshua
might have longer time to expend in slaying a handful of Amorites. The
bible also upholds the doctrines of witchcraft and spiritualism, for
Saul visited the witch of Endor, and she, after preparing the cabinet,
trotted out the spirit of Samuel, said spirit kindly joining in
conversation with Saul, without requiring the aid of a trance medium.
The speaker then quoted at length from Leviticus concerning wizards and
evil spirits, described the temptation of Christ by Satan, and the
driving of devils from man into swine. He sneered at the rights of
children as biblically described, citing the law which sentenced them
to be stoned to death for disobedience to parents, the almost sacrifice
of Isaac by his father, and the actual murder of Jephthah's daughter,
asking if a God who could demand such worship was worthy the love of
man. He next referred to the conversation between God and Satan
concerning the man Job, and of the reward given to the latter for his
long continued patience. His three daughters and his seven sons had
been taken from him merely to test his patience, and the merciful God
gave him in exchange three other daughters and seven sons, but they
were not the children whom he had loved and lost. The bible represents
woman as vastly inferior to man, while he believed, with Robbie Burns,
that God made man with a prentice-hand, and woman after He had learned
the trade. Polygamy, also, was a doctrine supported by this pure and
pious work; a doctrine so foul that language is not strong enough to
express its infamy. The bible taught, as a religious creed, that if
your wife, your sister, your brother, your dearest friend, tempted you
to change from the religion of your fathers, your duty to God demanded
that you should at once strike a blow at the life of your tempter. Let
us suppose, then, that in truth God went to Palestine and selected the
scanty tribes of Israel as his chosen people, and supposing that he
afterward came to Jerusalem in the shape of a man and taught a
different doctrine from the one prescribed by their book and their
clergy, and that the chosen people, in obedience to the education he
had prepared for them, struck at the life of him who tempted them.
Were they to be cursed by God and man because the former had reaped the
harvest of his own sowing?