It is announced in the papers that Colonel Ingersoll, the dollar a
ticket infidel, has struck it rich in a silver mine, and is now worth
a million dollars. Here is another evidence of the goodness of God.
Ingersoll has treated God with the greatest contempt, called Him all
the names he could think of, called Him a liar, a heartless wretch, and
stood on a stump and dared God to knock a chip off his shoulder, and
instead of God's letting him have one below the belt and knocking seven
kinds of cold victuals out of him, God gives him a pointer on a silver
mine, and the infidel rakes in a cool million, and laughs in his sleeve,
while thousands of poor workers in the vineyard are depending for a
livelihood on collections that pan out more gun wads and brass pants
buttons to the ton of ore than they do silver. This may be all right,
and we hope it is, and we don't want to give any advice on anybody
else's business, but it would please Christians a good deal better to
see that bold man taken by the slack of the pants and lifted into a poor
house, while the silver he has had fall to him was distributed among the
charitable societies, mission schools and churches, so a minister could
get his salary and buy a new pair of trousers to replace those that he
has worn the knees out of kneeling down on the rough floor to pray.
It is mighty poor consolation to the ladies of a church society, to give
sociables, ice creameries, strawberry festivals and all kinds of things
to raise money to buy a carpet for a church or lecture room, and wash
their own dishes, and then hear that some infidel who is around the
country calling God a pirate and a horse thief, at a dollar a head, to
full houses, has miraculously struck a million dollar silver mine.
To the toiling minister who prays without ceasing, and eats codfish and
buys clothes at a second hand store, it looks pretty rough to see Bob
Inger-soll steered onto a million dollar silver mine. But it may be all
right, and we presume it is. Maybe God has got the hook in Bob's mouth,
and is letting him play around the way a fisherman does a black bass,
and when he thinks he is running the whole business, and flops around
and scares the other fish, it is possible Bob may be reeled in, and he
will find himself on the bottom of the boat with a finger and thumb
in his gills and a big boot on his paunch, and he will be compelled to
disgorge the hook and the bait and all, and he will lay there and try
to flop out of the boat, and wonder what kind of a game this is that is
being played on him.
Everything turns out right some time, and from what we have heard of
God, off and on, we don't believe He is going to let no ordinary man,
bald headed and apoplectic, carry off all the persimmons, and put his
fingers to his nose and dare the ruler of the universe to tread on the
tail of his coat.
Bob Ingersoll has got the bulge on all the Christians now, and draws
more water than anybody, but He who notes the sparrow's fall has no
doubt got an eye on the fat rascal, and some day will close two or three
fingers around Bob's throat, when his eyes will stick out so you can
hang your hat on them, and he will blat like a calf and get down on his
knees and say:
“Please, Mr. God, don't choke so, and I will give it all back and
go around and tell the boys that I am the almightiest liar that ever
charged a dollar a head to listen to the escaping wind from a blown up
bladder. O, good God, don't hurt so. My neck is all chafed.”
And then he will die, and God will continue business at the old stand.