INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON THE MISTAKES OF MOSES.

Now and then some one asks me why I am endeavoring to interfere with

the religious faith of others, and why I try to take from the world the

consolation naturally arising from a belief in eternal fire. And I

answer, I want to do what little I can to make my country truly free. I

want to broaden the intellectual horizon of our people. I want it so

that we can differ upon all those questions, and yet grasp each other's

hands in genuine friendship. I want in the first place to free the

clergy. I am a great friend of theirs, but they don't seem to have

found it out generally. I want it so that every minister will be not a

parrot, not an owl sitting upon the limb of the tree of knowledge and

hooting the hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years.

But I want it so that each one can be an investigator, a thinker; and I

want to make his congregation grand enough so that they will not only

allow him to think, but will demand that he shall think, and give to

them the honest truth of his thought. As it is now, ministers are

employed like attorneys--for the plaintiff or the defendant. If a few

people know of a young man in the neighborhood maybe who has not a good

constitution,--he may not be healthy enough to be wicked--a young man

who has shown no decided talent--it occurs to them to make him a

minister. They contribute and send him to some school. If it turns

out that that young man has more of the man in him than they thought,

and he changes his opinion, everyone who contributed will feel himself

individually swindled--and they will follow that young man to the grave

with the poisoned shafts of malice and slander. I want it so that

every one will be free--so that a pulpit will not be a pillory. They

have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister

factory; and every professor in that factory takes an oath once in

every five years--that is as long as an oath will last--that not only

has he not during the last five years, but so help him God, he will not

during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably there

is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that

institution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the

same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and

now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from

Sheffield and Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated

knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he

reads, and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will

shrink and shrivel, and become solemnly stupid day after day until he

meets with death. It is all wrong; it is cruel. Those men should be

allowed to grow. They should have the air of liberty and the sunshine

of thought.

I want to free the schools of our country. I want it so that when a

professor in a college finds some fact inconsistent with Moses, he will

not hide the fact. I wish to see an eternal divorce and separation

between church and schools. The common school is the bread of life,

but there should be nothing taught except what somebody knows; and

anything else should not be maintained by a system of general taxation.

I want its professors so that they will tell everything they find; that

they will be free to investigate in every direction, and will not be

trammeled by the superstitions of our day. What has religion to do with

facts? Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics,

Presbyterian botany, Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has

any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any

science? Nothing but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to

free the schools; and I want to free the politicians, so that a man

will not have to pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or

his grandmother a Catholic; so that he can go through a campaign, and

when he gets through will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his

knees.

I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make

laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brains

enough to prophesy the destiny of the American Republic, no matter what

his opinions may be upon any religious subject. Suppose we are in a

storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, and it is

necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man presents

himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out his

opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with it?

Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and

from what little experience I have had in Washington, very little to do

with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this

magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or

Methodists, and remember that they are men and women. These are the

highest titles humanity can bear--and every title you add, belittles

them. Man is the highest; woman is the highest. Let us remember that

our views depend largely upon the country in which we happen to live.

Suppose we were born in Turkey most of us would have been Mohammedans;

and when we read in the book that when Mohammed visited heaven he

became acquainted with an angel named Gabriel, who was so broad between

his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to make

the journey, we probably would have believed it. If we did not, people

would say: "That young man is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the

fabric of our religion. What do you propose to give us instead of that

angel? We cannot afford to trade off an angel of that size for

nothing." Or if we had been born in India, we would have believed in a

god with three heads. Now we believe in three gods with one head. And

so we might make a tour of the world and see that every superstition

that could be imagined by the brain of man has been in some place held

to be sacred.

Now some one says, "The religion of my father and mother is good enough

for me." Suppose we all said that, where would be the progress of the

world? We would have the rudest and most barbaric religion--religion

which no one could believe. I do not believe that it is showing real

respect to our parents to believe something simply because they did.

Every good father and every good mother wish their children to find out

more than they knew every good father wants his son to overcome some

obstacle that he could not grapple with and if you wish to reflect

credit on your father and mother, do it by accomplishing more than they

did, because you live in a better time. Every nation has had what you

call a sacred record, and the older the more sacred, the more

contradictory and the more inspired is the record. We, of course, are

not an exception, and I propose to talk a little about what is called

the Pentateuch, a book, or a collection of books, said to have been

written by Moses. And right here in the commencement let me say that

Moses never wrote one word of the Pentateuch--not one word was written

until he had been dust and ashes for hundreds of years. But as the

general opinion is that Moses wrote these books, I have entitled this

lecture "The Mistakes of Moses." For the sake of this lecture, we will

admit that he wrote it. Nearly every maker of religion has commenced

by making the world; and it is one of the safest things to do, because

no one can contradict as having been present, and it gives free scope

to the imagination. These books, in times when there was a vast

difference between the educated and the ignorant, became inspired and

people bowed down and worshiped them.

I saw a little while ago a Bible with immense oaken covers, with hasps

and clasps large enough almost for a penitentiary, and I can imagine

how that book would be regarded by barbarians in Europe when not more

than one person in a dozen could read and write. In imagination I saw

it carried into the cathedral, heard the chant of the priest, saw the

swinging of the censer and the smoke rising; and when that Bible was

put on the altar I can imagine the barbarians looking at it and

wondering what influence that book could have on their lives and

future. I do not wonder that they imagined it was inspired. None of

them could write a book, and consequently when they saw it they adored

it; they were stricken with awe; and rascals took advantage of that awe.

Now they say that the book is inspired. I do not care whether it is or

not; the question is: Is it true? If it is true it doesn't need to be

inspired. Nothing needs inspiration except a falsehood or a mistake.

A fact never went into partnership with a miracle. Truth scorns the

assistance of wonders. A fact will fit every other fact in the

universe, and that is how you can tell--whether it is or not a fact. A

lie will not fit anything except a lie made for the express purpose;

and, finally, some one gets tired of lying, and the last lie will not

fit the next fact, and then there is a chance for inspiration. Right

then and there a miracle is needed. The real question is, in the light

of science, in the light of the brain and heart of the nineteenth

century, is this book true? The gentleman who wrote it begins by

telling us that God made the universe out of nothing. That I cannot

conceive; it may be so, but I cannot conceive it. Nothing in the light

of raw material, is, to my mind, a decided and disastrous failure. I

cannot imagine of nothing being made into something, any more than I

can of something being changed back into nothing. I cannot conceive of

force aside from matter, because force to be force must be active, and

unless there is matter there is nothing for force to act upon, and

consequently it cannot be active. So I simply say I cannot comprehend

it. I cannot believe it. I may roast for this, but it is my honest

opinion. The next thing he proceeds to tell us is that God divided the

darkness from the light, and right here let me say when I speak about

God I simply mean the being described by the Jews. There may be in

immensity a being beneath whose wing the universe exists, whose every

thought is a glittering star, but I know nothing about Him,--not the

slightest,--and this afternoon I am simply talking about the being

described by the Jewish people. When I say God, I mean Him. Moses

describes God dividing the light from the darkness. I suppose that at

that time they must have been mixed. You can readily see how light and

darkness can get mixed. They must have been entities. The reason I

think so is because in that same book I find that darkness overspread

Egypt so thick that it could be felt, and they used to have on

exhibition in Rome a bottle of the darkness that once overspread Egypt.

The gentleman who wrote this in imagination saw God dividing light from

the darkness. I am sure the man who wrote it, believed darkness to be

an entity, a something, a tangible thing that can be mixed with light.

The next thing that he informs us is that God divided the waters above

the firmament from those below the firmament. The man who wrote that

believed the firmament to be a solid affair. And that is what the gods

did. You recollect the gods came down and made love to the daughters

of men--and I never blamed them for it. I have never read a

description of any heaven I would not leave on the same errand. That

is where the gods lived. There is where they kept the water. It was

solid. That is the reason the people prayed for rain. They believed

that an angel could take a lever, raise a window and let out the

desired quantity. I find in the Psalms that "He bowed the heavens and

came down;" and we read that the children of men built a tower to

reach the heavens and climb into the abode of the gods. The man who

wrote that believed the firmament to be solid. He knew nothing about

the laws of evaporation. He did not know that the sun wooed with

amorous kiss the waves of the sea, and that, disappointed, their

vaporous sighs changed to tears and fell again as rain. The next thing

he tells us is that the grass began to grow; and the branches of the

trees laughed into blossom, and the grass ran up the shoulder of the

hills, and yet not a solitary ray of light had left the eternal quiver

of the sun. Not a blade of grass had ever been touched by a gleam of

light. And I do not think that grass will grow to hurt without a gleam

of sunshine. I think the man who wrote that simply made a mistake, and

is excusable to a certain degree. The next day he made the sun and

moon--the sun to rule the day and the moon to rule the night. Do you

think the man who wrote that knew anything about the size of the sun?

I think he thought it was about three feet in diameter, because I find

in some book that the sun was stopped a whole day, to give a general

named Joshua time to kill a few more Amalekites; and the moon was

stopped also. Now it seems to me that the sun would give light enough

without stopping the moon; but as they were in the stopping business

they did it just for devilment. At another time, we read, the sun was

turned ten degrees backward to convince Hezekiah that he was not going

to die of a boil. How much easier it would have been to cure the boil.

The man who wrote that thought the sun was two or three feet in

diameter, and could be stopped and pulled around like the sun and moon

in a theatre. Do you know that the sun throws out every second of time

as much heat as could be generated by burning eleven thousand millions

tons of coal? I don't believe he knew that, or that he knew the motion

of the earth. I don't believe he knew that it was turning on its axis

at the rate of a thousand miles an hour, because if he did, he would

have understood the immensity of heat that would have been generated by

stopping the world. It has been calculated by one of the best

mathematicians and astronomers that to stop the world would cause as

much heat as it would take to burn a lump of solid coal three times as

big as the globe. And yet we find in that book that the sun was not

only stopped, but turned back ten degrees, simply to convince a

gentleman that he was not going to die of a boil. They will say I will

be damned if I do not believe that, and I tell them I will if I do.

Then he gives us the history of astronomy, and he gives it to us in

five words: "He made the stars also." He came very near forgetting the

stars. Do you believe that the man who wrote that knew that there are

stars as much larger than this earth as this earth is larger than the

apple which Adam and Eve are said to have eaten. Do you believe that

he knew that this world is but a speck in the shining, glittering

universe of existence? I would gather from that that he made the stars

after he got the world done. The telescope, in reading the infinite

leaves of the heavens, has ascertained that light travels at the rate

of 192,000 miles per second, and it would require millions of years to

come from some of the stars to this earth. Yet the beams of those

stars mingle in our atmosphere, so that if those distant orbs were

fashioned when this world began, we must have been whirling in space

not six thousand, but many millions of years. Do you believe the man

who wrote that as a history of astronomy really knew that this world

was but a speck compared with millions of sparkling orbs? I do not.

He then proceeds to tell us that God made fish and cattle, and that man

and woman were created male and female. The first account stops at the

second verse of the second chapter. You see, the Bible originally was

not divided into chapters; the first Bible that was ever divided into

chapters in our language was made in the year of grace 1550. The Bible

was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language

at that time had no vowels in writing. It was written with consonants,

and without being divided into chapters or into verses, and there was

no system of punctuation whatever. After you go home tonight write an

English sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you

will find that it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it

did to write it. When the Bible was divided into verses and chapters,

the divisions were not always correct, and so the division between the

first and second chapter of Genesis is not in the right place. The

second account of the creation commences at the third verse and it

differs from the first in two essential points. In the first account

man is the last made; in the second man is made before the beasts. In

the first account, man is made "male and female"; in the second only a

male is made, and there is no intention of making a woman whatever.

You will find by reading that second chapter that God tried to palm off

on Adam a beast as his helpmeet. Everybody talks about the Bible and

nobody reads it; that is the reason it is so generally believed. I am

probably the only man in the United States who has read the Bible

through this year. I have wasted that time, but I had a purpose in

view. Just read it, and you will find, about the twenty-third verse,

that God caused all the animals to walk before Adam in order that he

might name them. And the animals came like a menagerie into town, and

as Adam looked at all the crawlers, jumpers and creepers, this God

stood by to see what he would call them. After this procession passed,

it was pathetically remarked, "Yet was there not found any helpmeet for

Adam." Adam didn't see anything that he could fancy. And I am glad he

didn't. If he had, there would not have been a free-thinker in this

world; we should have all died orthodox. And finding Adam was so

particular, God had to make him a helpmeet, and having used up the

nothing, he was compelled to take part of the man to make the woman

with, and he took from the man a rib. How did he get it? And then

imagine a God with a bone in his hand, and about to start a woman,

trying to make up his mind whether to make a blonde or a brunette.

Right here it is only proper that I should warn you of the consequences

of laughing at any story in the Bible. When you come to die, your

laughing at this story will be a thorn in your pillow. As you look

back upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have

wrecked and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and

deserted--all that may be forgiven you but if you recollect that you

have laughed at God's book you will see through the shadows of death,

the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Let me

show you how it will be. For instance it is the day of judgment. When

the man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the

cross-examining, he says to his soul "Where are you from?" "I am from

the world." "Yes sir. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I don't

like to talk about myself." "But you have to. What kind of a man were

you?" "Well, I was a good fellow; I loved my wife, I loved my children.

My home was my heaven; my fire-side was my paradise, and to sit there

and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those I love,

that to me was a perpetual joy. I never gave one of them a solitary

moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world and I left enough to

pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the

house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." "Did you belong to any

church?" "I did not. They were too narrow for me. They were always

expecting to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned."

"Well, did you believe that rib story?" "What rib story--Do you mean

that Adam and Eve business? No, I did not. To tell you the God's

truth, that was a little more than I could swallow." "To hell with

him. Next. Where are you from?" "I'm from the world, too. Do you

belong to any church?" "Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian

Association." "What is your business?" "Cashier in a bank." "Did you

ever run off with any money? I don't like to tell, Sir." "Well, you

have to." "Yes, Sir I did." "What kind of a bank did you have?" "A

savings bank." "How much did you run off with?" "One hundred thousand

dollars." "Did you take anything else along with you?" "Yes Sir."

"What?" "I took my neighbor's wife." "Did you have a wife and

children of your own?" "Yes, Sir." "And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes;

but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of

them." "Have you heard of them since?" "No, Sir. Did you believe that

rib story?" "Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believe all of it, Sir; I

often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the

Bible, so that I could show what my faith could do." "You believed it,

did you?" "Yes, with all my heart." "Give him a harp."

I simply wanted to show you how important it is to believe these

stories. Of all the authors in the world God hates a critic the worst.

Having got this woman done he brought her to the man, and they started

house-keeping, and a few minutes afterward a snake came through a crack

in the fence and commenced to talk with her on the subject of fruit.

She was not acquainted in the neighborhood, and she did not know

whether snakes talked or not, or whether they knew anything about the

apples or not. Well, she was misled, and the husband ate some of those

apples and laid it all on his wife; and there is where the mistake was

made. God ought to have rubbed him out at once. He might have known

that no good could come of starting the world with a man like that.

They were turned out. Then the trouble commenced, and people got worse

and worse. God, you must recollect, was holding the reins of

government, but He did nothing for them. He allowed them to live six

hundred and sixty-nine years without knowing their A. B. C. He never

started a school, not even a Sunday school. He didn't even keep His

own boys at home. And the world got worse every day, and finally he

concluded to drown them. Yet that same God has the impudence to tell me

how to raise my own children. What would you think of a neighbor, who

had just killed his babes giving you his views on domestic economy?

God found that he could do nothing with them and He said: "I will drown

them all except a few." And he picked out a fellow by the name of Noah,

that had been a bachelor for five hundred years. If I had to drown

anybody, I would have drowned him. I believe that Noah had then been

married something like one hundred years. God told him to build a

boat, and he built one five hundred feet long, eighty or ninety feet

broad and fifty-five feet high, with one door shutting on the outside,

and one window twenty-two inches square. If Noah had any hobby in the

world it was ventilation. Then into this ark he put a certain number

of all the animals in the world. Naturalists have ascertained that at

that time there were at least eleven hundred thousand insects necessary

to go into the ark, about forty thousand mammalia, sixteen hundred

reptiles, to say nothing of the mastodon, the elephant and the

animalcule, of which thousands live upon a single leaf and which cannot

be seen by the naked eye. Noah had no microscope, and yet he had pick

them out by pairs. You have no idea the trouble that man had. Some

say that the flood was not universal, that it was partial. Why then

did God say "I will destroy every living thing beneath the heavens."

If it was partial why did Noah save the birds? An ordinary bird,

tending strictly to business, can beat a partial flood. Why did he put

the birds in there--the eagles, the vultures, the condors--if it was

only a partial flood? And how did he get them in there? Were they

inspired to go there, or did he drive them up? Did the polar bear leave

his home of ice and start for the tropic inquiring for Noah; or could

the kangaroo come from Australia unless he was inspired, or somebody

was behind him? Then there are animals on this hemisphere not on that.

How did he get them across? And there are some animals which would be

very unpleasant in an ark unless the ventilation was very perfect.

When he got the animals in the ark, God shut the door and Noah pulled

down the window. And then it began to rain, and it kept on raining

until the water went twenty nine feet over the highest mountain.

Chimborazo, then as now, lifted its head above the clouds, and then as

now, there sat the condor. And yet the waters rose and rose over every

mountain in the world--twenty-nine feet above the highest peaks,

covered with snow and ice. How deep were these waters? About five and

a half miles. How long did it rain? Forty days. How much did it have

to rain a day? About eight hundred feet. How is that for dampness?

No wonder they said the windows of the heavens were open. If I had been

there I would have said the whole side of the house was out. How long

were they in this ark? A year and ten days, floating around with no

rudder, no sail, nobody on the outside at all. The window was shut, and

there was no door, except the one that shut on the outside. Who ran

this ark--who took care of it? Finally it came down on Mount Ararat, a

peak seventeen thousand feet above the level of the sea, with about

three thousand feet of snow, and it stopped there simply to give the

animals from the tropics a chance. Then Noah opened the window and got

a breath of fresh air, and let out all the animals; and then Noah took

a drink, and God made a bargain with him that He would not drown us any

more, and He put a rainbow in the clouds and said: "When I see that I

will recollect that I have promised not to drown you." Because if it

was not for that He is apt to drown us at any moment. Now can anybody

believe that that is the origin of the rainbow? Are you not all

familiar with the natural causes which bring those beautiful arches

before our eyes? Then the people started out again, and they were as

bad as before. Here let me ask why God did not make Noah in the first

place? He knew He would have to drown Adam and Eve and all his family.

Then another thing, why did He want to drown the animals? What had they

done? What crime had they committed? It is very hard to answer these

questions--that is, for a man who has only been born once. After a

while they tried to build a tower to get into heaven, and the gods

heard about it and said "Let's go down and see what man is up to."

They came, and found things a great deal worse than they thought, and

thereupon He confounded the language to prevent them succeeding, so

that the fellow up above could not shout down "mortar" or "brick" to

the one below, and they had to give it up. Is it possible that any one

believes that that is the reason why we have the variety of languages

in the world? Do you know that language is born of human experience,

and is a physical science? Do you know that every word has been

suggested in some way by the feelings or observations of man--that

there are words as tender as the dawn, as serene as the stars, and

others as wild as the beasts? Do you know that language is dying and

being born continually--that every language has its cemetery and its

cradle, its bud and blossom, and withered leaf? Man has loved, enjoyed

and suffered, and language is simply the expression he gives those

experiences.

Then the world began to divide, and the Jewish nation was started. Now

I want to say that at one time your ancestors, like mine, were

barbarians. If the Jewish people had to write these books now they

would be civilized books, and I do not hold them responsible for what

their ancestors did. We find the Jewish people first in Canaan, and

there were seventy of them, counting Joseph and his children already in

Egypt. They lived two hundred and fifteen years, and they then went

down into Egypt and stayed there two hundred and fifteen years they

were four hundred and thirty years in Canaan and Egypt. How many did

they have when they went to Egypt? Seventy. How many were they at the

end of two hundred and fifteen years? Three millions. That is a good

many. We had at the time of the Revolution in this country three

millions of people. Since that time there have been four doubles, until

we have forty-eight millions today. How many would the Jews number at

the same ratio in two hundred and fifteen years? Call it eight doubles

and we have forty thousand. But instead of forty thousand they had

three millions. How do I know they had three millions? Because they

had six hundred thousand men of war. For every honest voter in the

State of Illinois there will be five other people, and there are always

more voters than men of war. They must have had at the lowest possible

estimate three millions of people. Is that true? Is there a minister

in the city of Chicago that will testify to his own idiocy by claiming

that they could have increased to three millions by that time? If

there is, let him say so. Do not let him talk about the civilizing

influence of a lie.

When they got into the desert they took a census to see how man

first-born children there were. They found they had twenty-thousand

two hundred and seventy-three first-born males. It is reasonable to

suppose there was about the same number of first-born girls, or

forty-five thousand first-born children. There must have been about as

many mothers as first-born children. Dividing three millions by

forty-five thousand mothers, and you will find that the women in Israel

had to have on the average sixty-eight children apiece. Some stories

are too thin. This is too thick. Now, we know that among three million

people there will be about three hundred births a day; and according to

the Old Testament, whenever a child was born the mother had to make a

sacrifice--a sin-offering for the crime of having been a mother. If

there is in this universe anything that is infinitely pure, it is a

mother with her child in her arms. Every woman had to have a sacrifice

of a couple of pigeons, and the priests had to eat those pigeons in the

most holy place. At that time there were at least three hundred births

a day, and the priests had to cook and eat these pigeons in the most

holy place; and at that time there were only three priests. Two

hundred birds apiece per day! I look upon them as the champion

bird-eaters of the world.

Then where were these Jews? They were upon the desert of Sinai; and

Sahara compared to that is a garden. Imagine an ocean of lava, torn by

storm and vexed by tempest, suddenly gazed at by a Gorgon and changed

to stone. Such was the desert of Sinai. The whole supplies of the

world could not maintain three millions of people on the desert of

Sinai for forty years. It would cost one hundred thousand millions of

dollars, and would bankrupt Christendom. And yet there they were with

flocks and herds--so many that they sacrificed over one hundred and

fifty thousand first-born lambs at one time.

It would require millions of acres to support these flocks, and yet

there was no blade of grass, and there is no account of it raining

baled hay. They sacrificed one hundred and fifty thousand lambs, and

the blood had all to be sprinkled on the altar within two hours, and

there, were only three priests. They would have to sprinkle the blood

of twelve hundred and fifty lambs per minute. Then all the people

gathered in front of the tabernacle eighteen feet deep. Three millions

of people would make a column six miles long. Some reverend gentlemen

say they were ninety feet deep. Well, that would make a column of over

a mile.

Where were these people going? They were going to the Holy Land. How

large was it? Twelve thousand square miles--one-fifth the size of

Illinois--a frightful country, covered with rocks and desolation. There

never was a land agent in the city of Chicago that would not have

blushed with shame to have described that land as flowing with milk and

honey. Do you believe that God Almighty ever went into partnership

with hornets? Is it necessary unto salvation? God said to the Jews

"I will send hornets before you, to drive out the Canaanites." How

would a hornet know a Canaanite? Is it possible that God inspired the

hornets--that he granted letters of marque and reprisal to hornets? I

am willing to admit that nothing in the world would be better

calculated to make a man leave his native country than a few hornets

attending strictly to business. God said "Kill the Canaanites slowly."

Why? "Lest the beasts of the field increase upon you." How many Jews

were there? Three millions. Going to a country, how large? Twelve

thousand square miles. But were there nations already in this Holy

Land? Yes, there were seven nations "mightier than the Jews." Say

there would be twenty-one millions when they got there, or twenty-four

millions with themselves. Yet they were told to kill them slowly, lest

the beasts of the field increase upon them. Is there a man in Chicago

that believes that! Then what does he teach it to little children for?

Let him tell the truth.

So the same God went into partnership with snakes. The children of

Israel lived on manna--one account says all the time, and another only

a little while. That is the reason there is a chance for commentaries,

and you can exercise faith. If the book was reasonable everybody could

get to heaven in a moment. But whenever it looks as if it could not be

that way and you believe, you are almost a saint, and when you know it

is not that way and believe, you are a saint. He fed them on manna.

Now manna is very peculiar stuff. It would melt in the sun, and yet

they used to cook it by seething and baking. I would as soon think of

frying snow and boiling icicles. But this manna had other peculiar

qualities. It shrank to an omer, no matter how much they gathered, and

swelled up to an omer, no matter how little they gathered. What a

magnificent thing manna would be for the currency, shrinking and

swelling according to the volume of business! There was not a change

in the bill of fare for forty years, and they knew that God could just

as well give them three square meals a day. They remembered about the

cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks and the onions of Egypt, and

they said: "Our souls abhorreth this light bread." Then this God got

mad--you know cooks are always touchy--and thereupon He sent snakes to

bite the men, women and children. He also sent them quails in wrath

and anger, and while they had the flesh between their teeth, he struck

thousands of them dead. He always acted in that way, all of a sudden.

People had no chance to explain--no chance to move for a new

trial--nothing. I want to know if it is reasonable He should kill

people for asking for one change of diet in forty years. Suppose you

had been boarding with an old lady for forty years, and she never had a

solitary thing on her table but hash, and one morning you said: "My

soul abhorreth hash!" What would you say if she let a basketful of

rattlesnakes upon you? Now is it possible for people to believe this?

The Bible says their clothes did not wax old, they did not get shiny at

the knees or elbows; and their shoes did not wear out. They grew right

along with them. The little boy starting out with his first pants grew

up and his pants grew with him. Some commentators have insisted that

angels attended to their wardrobes. I never could believe it. Just

think of one angel hunting another and saying: "There goes another

button." I cannot believe it.

There must be a mistake somewhere or somehow. Do you believe the real

God--if there is one--ever killed a man for making hair-oil? And yet

you find in the Pentateuch that God gave Moses a recipe for making

hair-oil to grease Aaron's beard; and said if anybody made the same

hair-oil he should be killed. And He gave him a formula for making

ointment, and He said if anybody made ointment like that he should be

killed. I think that is carrying patent-laws to excess. There must be

some mistake about it. I cannot imagine the infinite Creator of all

the shining worlds giving a recipe for hair-oil. Do you believe that

the real God came down to Mount Sinai with a lot of patterns for making

a tabernacle-patterns for tongs, for snuffers, and such things? Do you

believe that God came down on that mountain and told Moses how to cut a

coat, and how it should be trimmed? What would an infinite God care on

which side he cut the breast, what color the fringe was, or how the

buttons were placed? Do you believe God told Moses to make curtains of

fine linen? Where did they get their flax in the desert? How did they

weave it? Did He tell him to make things of gold, silver and precious

stones, when they hadn't them? Is it possible that God told them not

to eat any fruit until after the fourth year of planting the trees?

You see all these things were written hundreds of years afterwards, and

the priests, in order to collect the tithes, dated the laws back. They

did not say, "This is our law," but, "Thus said God to Moses in the

wilderness." Now, can you believe that? Imagine a scene: The eternal

God tells Moses "Here is the way I want you to consecrate my priests.

Catch a sheep and cut his throat." I never could understand why God

wanted a sheep killed just because a man had done a mean trick; perhaps

it was because his priests were fond of mutton. He tells Moses further

to take some of the blood and put it on his right thumb, a little on

his right ear, and a little on his right big toe? Do you believe God

ever gave such instructions for the consecration of His priests? If

you should see the South Sea Islanders going through such a performance

you could not keep your face straight. And will you tell me that it

had to be done in order to consecrate a man to the service of the

infinite God? Supposing the blood got on the left toe?

Then we find in this book how God went to work to make the Egyptians

let the Israelites go. Suppose we wish to make a treaty with the

mikado of Japan, and Mr. Hayes sent a commissioner there; and suppose

he should employ Hermann, the wonderful German, to go along with him;

and when they came in the presence of the mikado Herman threw down an

umbrella, which changed into a turtle, and the commissioner said: "This

is my certificate." You would say the country is disgraced. You would

say the president of a republic like this disgraces himself with

jugglery. Yet we are told God sent Moses and Aaron before Pharaoh, and

when they got there Moses threw down a stick which turned into a snake.

That God is a juggler--he is the infinite prestidigitator. Is that

possible? Was that really a snake, or was it the appearance of a

snake? If it was the appearance of a snake, it was a fraud. Then the

necromancers of Egypt were sent for, and they threw down sticks, which

turned into snakes, but those were not so large as Moses' snakes, which

swallowed them. I maintain that it is just as hard to make small

snakes as it is to make large ones; the only difference is that to make

large snakes either larger sticks or more practice is required.

Do you believe that God rained hail on innocent cattle, killing them in

the highways and in the field? Why should he inflict punishment on

cattle for something their owners had done? I could never have any

respect for a God that would so inflict pain upon a brute beast simply

on account of the crime of its owner. Is it possible that God worked

miracles to convince Pharaoh that slavery was wrong? Why did he not

tell Pharaoh that any nation founded on slavery could not stand? Why

did he not tell him, "Your government is founded on slavery, and it

will go down, and the sands of the desert will hide from the view of

man your temples, your altars, and your fanes?" Why did he not speak

about the infamy of slavery? Because he believed in the infamy of

slavery himself. Can we believe that God will allow a man to give his

wife the right of divorcement and make the mother of his children a

wanderer and a vagrant. There is not one word about woman in the Old

Testament except the word of shame and humiliation. The God of the

Bible does not think woman is as good as man. She never was worth

mentioning. It did not take the pains to recount the death of the

mother of us all. I have no respect for any book that does not treat

woman as the equal of man. And if there is any God in this universe who

thinks more of me than he thinks of my wife, he is not well acquainted

with both of us. And yet they say that that was done on account of the

hardness of their hearts; and that was done in a community where the

law was so fierce that it stoned a man to death for picking up sticks

on Sunday. Would it not have been better to stone to death every man

who abused his wife and allowed them to pick up sticks on account of

the hardness of their hearts? If God wanted to take those Jews from

Egypt to the land of Canaan, why didn't He do it instantly? If He was

going to do a miracle why didn't He do one worth talking about?

After God had killed all the first-born in Egypt, after He had killed

all the cattle, still Egypt could raise an army that could put to

flight six hundred thousand men. And because this God overwhelmed the

Egyptian army, he bragged about it for a thousand years, repeatedly

calling the attention of the Jews to the fact that he overthrew Pharaoh

and his hosts. Did he help much with their six-hundred thousand men?

We find by the records of the day that the Egyptian standing army at

that time was never more than one hundred thousand men. Must we

believe all these stories in order to get to Heaven when we die? Must

we judge of a man's character by the number of stories he believes?

Are we to get to Heaven by creed or by deed? That is the question.

Shall we reason, or shall we simply believe? Ah, but they say the

Bible is not inspired about those little things. The Bible says the

rabbit and the hare chew the cud. But they do not. They have a

tremulous motion of the lip. But the Being that made them says they

chew the cud. The Bible, therefore, is not inspired in natural

history. Is it inspired in its astrology? No. Well, what is it

inspired in? In its law? Thousands of people say that if it had not

been for the ten commandments we would not have known any better than

to rob and steal. Suppose a man planted an acre of potatoes, hoed them

all summer, and dug them in the fall; and suppose a man had sat upon

the fence all the time and watched him? Do you believe it would be

necessary for that man to read the ten commandments to find out who, in

his judgment had a right to take those potatoes? All laws against

larceny have been made by industry to protect the fruits of its labor.

Why is there a law against murder? Simply because a large majority of

people object to being murdered. That is all. And all these laws were

in force thousands of years before that time.

One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images,

and that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever

enriched stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any

commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. But

they say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no

civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as

you do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation without

a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with?

Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go

down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally

inspired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this

thing, because I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon

this question--whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not and

upon that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who

believes in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who

believes in that infamy? You say: "No, we do not." Then you are

better than your God was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years

ago he believed in it, taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and

denounce it the infamy of infamies. It robs our language of every

sweet and tender word in it. It takes the fire-side away forever. It

takes the meaning out of the words father, mother, sister, brother, and

turns the temple of love into a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes

of lust and hatred. I was in Utah a little while ago, and was on the

mountain where God used to talk to Brigham Young. He never said

anything to me. I said that it was just as reasonable that God in the

nineteenth century should talk to a polygamist in Utah as it was that

four thousand years ago, on Mount Sinai, he talked to Moses upon that

hellish and damnable question.

I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no

heaven on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the

one man loves the one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the

polygamy question. May be it is inspired about religious liberty. God

says if anybody differs with you about religion, "kill him." He told

His peculiar people, "If any one teaches a different religion, kill

him!" He did not say, "Try and convince him that he is wrong," but

"kill him." He did not say, "I am in the miracle business, and I will

convince him," but "kill him." He said to every husband, "If your

wife, that you love as you love your own soul, says, 'let us go and

worship other gods,' then 'Thy hand shall be first upon her and she

shall be stoned with stones until she dies.'" Well, now, I hate a God

of that kind, and I cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away

from Him. A God tells a man to kill his wife simply because she

differs with him on religion! If the real God were to tell me to kill

my wife, I would not do it. If you had lived in Palestine at that time,

and your wife--the mother of your children--had woke up at night and

said "I am tired of Jehovah. He is always turning up that board-bill.

He is always telling about whipping the Egyptians. He is always

killing somebody. I am tired of Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun

has clothed the world in beauty; it has covered the earth with green

and flowers; by its divine light I first saw your face; its light has

enabled me to look into the eyes of my beautiful babe. Let us worship

the sun, father and mother of light and love and joy." Then what would

it be your duty to do--kill her? Do you believe a real God ever did

that? Your hand should be first upon her, and when you took up some

ragged rock and hurled it against the white bosom filled with love for

you, and saw running away the red current of her sweet life, then you

would look up to heaven and receive the congratulations of the infinite

fiend whose commandments you had to obey. I guess the Bible was not

inspired about religious liberty. Let me ask you right here: Suppose,

as a matter of fact, God gave those laws to the Jews and told them

"whenever a man preaches a different religion, kill him," and suppose

that afterwards the same God took upon Himself flesh, and came to the

world and taught and preached a different religion, and the Jews

crucified Him--did He not reap exactly what He sowed?

May be this book is inspired about war. God told the Israelites to

overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending

their native land. Kill the old men? Yes. Kill the women?

Certainly. And the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and

coo in the face of murder--dash out their brains; that is the will of

God. Will you tell me that any God ever commanded such infamy? Kill

the men and the women, and the young men and the babes! "What shall we

do with the maidens?" "Give them to the rabble murderers!" Do you

believe that God ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of

modesty that shed their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled

beneath the brutal feet of lust? If there is any God, I pray Him to

write in the book of eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that I

denied that lie.

Whenever a woman reads a Bible and comes to that passage, she ought to

throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. Do you tell me that any

decent god would do that? What would the devil have done under the

same circumstances? Just think of it, and yet that is the God that we

want to get into the Constitution. That is the God we teach our

children about so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind!

That monster--that fiend--I guess the Bible is not inspired about

religious liberty, nor about war.

Then, if it is not inspired about these things, may be it is inspired

about slavery. God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the

heathen round about and they should be servants for them. What is a

"servant?" If they struck a "servant" and he died immediately,

punishment was to follow; but if the injured man should linger a while,

there was no punishment, because the servant represented their money!

Do you believe that it is right--that God made one man to work for

another and to receive pay in rations? Do you believe God said that a

whip on the naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it

possible that the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws?

What more does He say? When the time of a married slave expired, he

could not take his wife and children with him. Then if the slave did

not wish to desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and

became his master's property forever. Do you believe that God ever

turned the dimpled cheeks of little children into iron chains to hold a

man in slavery? Do you know that a God like that would not make a

respectable devil? I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no

lot in the heaven of such a God. I will go to perdition, where there

is human sympathy. The only voice we have ever had from either of

those other worlds came from hell. There was a rich man who prayed his

brothers to attend to Lazarus so that they might "not come to this

place." That is the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across

the river having any sympathy. And I would rather be in hell, asking

for water, than in heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this

book inspired about? Where does the inspiration come from? Why was it

that so many animals were killed? It was simply to make atonement for

man--that is all. They killed something that had not committed a crime,

in order that the one who had committed the crime might be acquitted.

Based upon that idea is the atonement of the Christian religion. That

is the reason I attack this book--because it is the basis of another

infamy, viz: that one man can be good for another, or that one man can

sin for another. I deny it. You have got to be good for yourself; you

have got to sin for yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that

it saves the wrong man. For instance, I kill some one. He is a good

man. He loves his wife and children and tries to make them happy; but

he is not a Christian, and he goes to hell. Just as soon as I am

convicted and cannot get a pardon I get religion, and I go to heaven.

The hand of mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of hell to my

victim.

There is no atonement for the saint--only for the sinner and the

criminal. The atonement saves the wrong man. I have said that I would

never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine. I did not

care what I started out on. I was always going to attack this

doctrine. And in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the

Christian heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest I have

to say about Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never

printed until 1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in

manuscript, in possession of those who could change it if they wished;

and they did change it, because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in

the waste basket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in

the dull ear of memory. I want you also to know that the Jews

themselves never agreed as to what books were inspired, and that there

were a lot of books written that were not incorporated in the Old

Testament. I want you to know that two or three years before Christ,

the Hebrew manuscript was translated into Greek, and that the original

from which the translation was made, has never been seen since. Some

Latin Bibles were found in Africa but no two agreed; and then they

translated the Septuagint into the languages of Europe, and no two

agreed. Henry VIII. took a little time between murdering his wives to

see that the Word of God was translated correctly. You must recollect

that we are indebted to murderers for our Bibles and our creeds.

Constantine, who helped on the good work in its early stage, murdered

his wife and child, mingling their blood with the blood of the Savior.

The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit, and then his daughter,

the murderess of Mary, Queen of Scots, got up another edition, which

also did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, King James,

prepared the edition which we now have. There are at least one hundred

thousand errors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not

enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are

gradually being fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs

instead of "ravens," and Samson's three hundred foxes will be three

hundred "sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the

standing wheat. I want you all to know that there was no

contemporaneous literature at the time the Bible was composed, and that

the Jews were infinitely ignorant in their day and generation--that

they were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the

world. I want you to know that there are fourteen hundred millions of

people in the world; and that with all the talk and work of the

societies, only one hundred and twenty millions have got Bibles. I

want you to understand that not one person in one hundred in this world

ever read the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike who did read

it, and that no one person probably ever understood it aright. I want

you to understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated his

brother--there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword.

I want you to know that the cross has been in partnership with the

sword, and that the religion of Jesus Christ was established by

murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the church

carried the black flag. Then talk about the civilizing influence of

this religion!

Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian's heaven.

Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get

to heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "If I

can only get my little soul in." I have always noticed that the people

who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them

saved. Here is what we are taught by the church today. We are taught

by it that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy

in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy

there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his

life, in hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we

believe in now is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the

mean things you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any

remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven? Or

will you be so good then that you won't care how you used to be? Don't

you see what an infinitely mean belief that is? I tell you today that,

no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are

spending the summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged you

will drop a little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part of

hell you are, and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose

nakedness you have clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire

will cool up a little. According to this Christian doctrine, when you

are in heaven you won't care how mean you were once. What must be the

social condition of a gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never

would have been there if he had not got scared? What must be the

social position of an angel who will always admit that if another had

not pitied him he ought to have been damned? Is it a compliment to an

infinite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned

the minute He got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has not

had a chance to make over. Is it possible that somebody else can be

good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor

for the human soul?

For instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a

splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got

about him splendid children whom he has loved and cared for with all

his heart. But he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not

believe in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some

children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two

bears and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart,

and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody

fragments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of

grief; he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not

believe that God was such an infinite monster. That was all he

thought, but he went to Hell. Then, there is another man who made a

hell on earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum,

and his children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants

in the world. But just between the last sin and the last breath, this

fellow got religion, and he never did another thing except to take his

medicine. He never did a solitary human being a favor, and he died and

went to heaven. Don't you think he would be astonished to see that

other man in hell, and say to himself, "Is it possible that such a

splendid character should bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at

last has brought me next to God?"

Or, let us put another case. You were once alone in the desert--no

provisions, no water, no hope, just when your life was at its lowest

ebb a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out.

How you would bless that man. Time rolls on. You die and go to

heaven; and one day you see through the black night of hell, the friend

who saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched

lips. He cries to you, "Remember what I did in the desert--give me to

drink." How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering

and be unable to relieve him. But this is the Christian heaven. We

sit by the fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the

chimney--everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on

the window, and out on the doorstep is a mother with a child on her

breast freezing. How happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful

contrast. And we say, "God is good," and there we sit, and she sits

and moans, not one night but forever. Or we are sitting at the table

with our wives and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted; and

Famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes,

implores us for a crust. How that would increase the appetite! And yet

that is the Christian heaven. Don't you see that these infamous

doctrines petrify the human heart? And I would have everyone who hears

me, swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build another

church in which is taught such infamous lies. I want everyone of you

to say, that you never will, directly or indirectly, give a dollar to

any man to preach that falsehood. It has done harm enough. It has

covered the world with blood. It has filled the asylums for the

insane. It has cast a shadow in the heart, in the sunlight of every

good and tender man and woman. I say let us rid the heavens of this

monster, and write upon the dome "Liberty, love and law."

No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do

exactly what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought

in our brains. Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather

all the gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the

whole universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this

instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on

the eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal

destruction of this universe. I would rather see the shining fabric of

our universe crumble to unmeaning chaos, and take itself where oblivion

broods and memory forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some

imprisoned force, released by thoughtless chance, should so rack and

strain this world that man in stress and strain, in astonishment and

fear, should suddenly fall back to savagery and barbarity. I would

rather that this thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life,

should in its cycles rub the wheel, the parent star, on which the light

should fall as fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to

have this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment true; rather than

have this infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the

many established as the word of God.

One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy here.

Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more

decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man

try to make his wife happy, his children happy. Let every man try to

make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. I

cannot help God; I cannot injure God. I can help people; I can injure

people. Consequently humanity is the only real religion.

I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from

Robert Burns:

"To make a happy fireside clime

To weans and wife--

That's the true pathos and sublime

Of human life."

INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON SKULLS,--And His Replies To Prof. Swing, Dr.

Collyer, And Other Critics--Reprinted from "The Chicago Times."

Ladies and Gentlemen: Man advances just in the proportion that he

mingles his thoughts with his labor--just in the proportion that he

takes advantage of the forces of nature; just in proportion as he loses

superstition and gains confidence in himself. Man advances as he

ceases to fear the gods and learns to love his fellow-men. It is all,

in my judgment, a question of intellectual development. Tell me the

religion of any man and I will tell you the degree he marks on the

intellectual thermometer of the world. It is a simple question of

brain. Those among us who are the nearest barbarism have a barbarian

religion. Those who are nearest civilization have the least

superstition. It is, I say, a simple question of brain, and I want, in

the first place, to lay the foundation to prove that assertion.

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--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with

teeth twice as long as his forehead was high, with a spoonful of brains

in the back of his orthodox head--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; 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 from shore to shore. And I

saw at the same time the paintings of the world, from the rude daub of

yellow mud to the landscapes that enrich palaces and adorn houses of

what were once called the common people. 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 today,--to the marbles that genius has clad

in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch them

without an introduction. I saw their books--books written upon the

skins of wild beasts--upon shoulder-blades of sheep--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."

I saw at the same time the offensive 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 flintlock, to the caplock, 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. 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. And I say orthodox not

only in the matter of religion, but in everything. Whoever has quit

growing, he is orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion,

philosophy--no matter what. Whoever thinks he has found it all out he

is orthodox. Orthodoxy is that which rots, and heresy is that which

grows forever. Orthodoxy is the night of the past, full of the

darkness of superstition, and heresy is the eternal coming day, the

light of which strikes the grand foreheads of the intellectual pioneers

of the world. I saw their implements of agriculture, from the plow

made of a crooked stick, attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted

straw, with which our ancestors scraped the earth, and from that to the

agricultural implements of this generation, that make it possible for a

man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.

In the old time there was but one crop; and when the rain did not come

in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell

upon their knees. At that time they were full of superstition. They

were frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at

his poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. But now, instead of

depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain

enough for one there may be enough for another. And if the frosts kill

all, we have railroads and steamship--enough to bring what we need from

some other part of the world. Since man has found out something about

agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of producing

famines.

I saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tomtom--that

is, a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from

that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have today, that make the common

air blossom with melody, and I said to myself there is a regular

advancement. I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the

lowest skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull--skulls from

Central Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia--skulls from the

farthest isles of the Pacific Sea--up to the best skulls of the last

generation--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. 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. And I said to

myself, it is all a question of intellectual development.

Man has advanced just as he has mingled his thought with his labor. As

he has grown he has taken advantage of the forces of nature; first of

the moving wind, then of the falling water and finally of steam. From

one step to another he has obtained better houses, better clothes, and

better books, and he has done it by holding out every incentive to the

ingenious to produce them. The world has said, give us better clubs

and guns and cannons with which to kill our fellow Christians. And

whoever will give us better weapons and better music, and better houses

to live in, we will robe him in wealth crown him in honor, and render

his name deathless. Every incentive was held out to every human being

to improve these things, and that is the reason we have advanced in all

mechanical arts. But that gentleman in the dugout not only had his

ideas about politics, mechanics, and agriculture; he had his ideas also

about religion. His idea about politics was "Might makes right." It

will be thousands of years, may be, before mankind will believe in the

saying that "right makes might." He had his religion. That low skull

was a devil factory. He believed in Hell, and the belief was a

consolation to him. He could see the waves of God's wrath dashing

against the rocks of dark damnation. He could see tossing in the

whitecaps the faces of women, and stretching above the crests the

dimpled hands of children; and he regarded these things as the justice

and mercy of God. And all today who believe in this eternal punishment

are the barbarians of the nineteenth century. That man believed in a

devil, that had a long tail terminating with a fiery dart; that had

wings like a bat--a devil that had a cheerful habit of breathing

brimstone, that had a cloven foot, such as some orthodox clergymen seem

to think I have. And there has not been a patentable improvement made

upon that devil in all the years since. The moment you drive the devil

out of theology, there is nothing left worth speaking of. The moment

they drop the devil, away goes atonement. The moment they kill the

devil, their whole scheme of salvation has lost all of its interest for

mankind. You must keep the devil and, you must keep Hell. You must

keep the devil, because with no devil no priest is necessary. Now, all

I ask is this--the same privilege to improve upon his religion as upon

his dug-out, and that is what I am going to do, the best I can. No

matter what church you belong to, or what church belongs to us. Let us

be honor bright and fair.

I want to ask you: Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest

if there was one at that time, had told these gentlemen in the dug-out:

"That dug-out is the best boat that 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 he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle of it

and a rag on the stick, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the

stake;" what, in your judgment--honor bright--would have been the

effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? Suppose the king, if

there was one, and the priest, if there was one--and I presume there

was a priest, because it was a very ignorant age--suppose the king and

priest had said: "The tomtom 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 glorified 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--that is how we obtained it; and any man who says 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,"--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? 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 an exceedingly holy dream,

and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra 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?

Now, all I ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as

upon his mechanical arts. Why don't we go back to that period to get

the telegraph? Because they were barbarians. And shall we go to

barbarians to get our religion? What is religion? Religion simply

embraces the duty of man to man. Religion is simply the science of

human duty and the duty of man to man--that is what it is. It is the

highest science of all. And all other sciences are as nothing, except

as they contribute to the happiness of man. The science of religion is

the highest of all, embracing all others. And shall we go to the

barbarians to learn the science of sciences? The nineteenth century

knows more about religion than all the centuries dead. There is more

real charity in the world today than ever before. There is more thought

today than ever before. Woman is glorified today as she never was

before in the history of the world. There are more happy families now

than ever before--more children treated as though they were tender

blossoms than as though they were brutes than in any other time or

nation. Religion is simply the duty a man owes to man; and when you

fall upon your knees and pray for something you know not of, you

neither benefit the one you pray for nor yourself. One ounce of

restitution is worth a million of repentances anywhere, and a man will

get along faster by helping himself a minute than by praying ten years

for somebody to help him. Suppose you were coming along the street,

and found a party of men and women on their knees praying to a bank,

and you asked them, "Have any of you borrowed any money of this bank?"

"No, but our fathers, they, too, prayed to this bank." "Did they ever

get any?" "No, not that we ever heard of." I would tell them to get up.

It is easier to earn it, and it is far more manly.

Our fathers in the "good old times,"--and the best that I can say of

the "good old times" is that they are gone, and the best I can say of

the good old people that lived in them is that they are gone,

too--believed that you made a man think your way by force. Well, you

can't do it. There is a splendid something in man that says: "I won't;

I won't be driven." But our fathers thought men could be driven. They

tried it in the "good old times." I used to read about the manner in

which the early Christians made converts--how they impressed upon the

world the idea that God loved them. I have read it, but it didn't burn

into my soul. I didn't think much about it--I heard so much about

being fried forever in Hell that it didn't seem so bad to burn a few

minutes. I love liberty and I hate all persecutions in the name of

God. I never appreciated the infamies that have been committed in the

name of religion until I saw the iron arguments that Christians used.

I saw, for instance, the thumb-screw, two little innocent looking

pieces of iron, armed with some little protuberances on the inner side

to keep it from slipping down, and through each end a screw, and when

some man had made some trifling remark, for instance, that he never

believed that God made a fish swallow a man to keep him from drowning,

or something like that, or, for instance, that he didn't believe in

baptism. You know that is very wrong. You can see for yourself the

justice of damning a man if his parents happened to baptize him in the

wrong way--God cannot afford to break a rule or two to save all the men

in the world. I happened to be in the company of some Baptist

ministers once--you may wonder how I happened to be in such company as

that--and one of them asked me what I thought about baptism. Well, I

told them I hadn't thought much about it--that I had never sat up

nights on that question. I said: "Baptism--with soap--is a good

institution." Now, when some man had said some trifling thing like

that, they put this thumb-screw on him, and in the name of universal

benevolence and for the love of God--man has never persecuted man for

the love of man; man has never persecuted another for the love of

charity--it is always for the love of something he calls God, and every

man's idea of God is his own idea. If there is an infinite God, and

there may be--I don't know--there may be a million for all I know--I

hope there is more than one--one seems so lonesome. They kept turning

this down, and when this was done, most men would say: "I will recant."

I think, I would. There is not much of the martyr about me. I would

have told them: "Now you write it down, and I will sign it. You may

have one God or a million, one Hell or a million. You stop that--I am

tired."

Do you know, sometimes I have thought that all the hypocrites in the

world are not worth one drop of honest blood. I am sorry that any good

man ever died for religion. I would rather let them advance a little

easier. It is too bad to see a good man sacrificed for a lot of wild

beasts and cattle. But there is now and then a man who would not

swerve the breadth of a hair. There was now and then a sublime heart

willing to die for an intellectual conviction, and had it not been for

these men we would have been wild beasts and savages today. There were

some men who would not take it back, and had it not been for a few such

brave, heroic souls in every age we would have been cannibals, with

pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our breasts, dancing around some

dried-snake fetish. And so they turned it down to the last thread of

agony, and threw the 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, in the name of mercy, in the name of

the compassionate Christ. And the men that did it are the men that

made our Bible for us.

I saw, too, at the same time, 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." And that was done to convince

the world that God so loved the world that He died for us. That was in

order that people might hear the glad tidings of great joy to all

people.

I saw another instrument, called the scavenger's daughter. Imagine 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, and in that position the man would be thrown

upon the earth, and the strain upon the muscle would produce such agony

that insanity took pity. And this was done to keep people from going

to Hell--to convince that man that he had made a mistake in his

logic--and it was done, too, by Protestants--Protestants that

persecuted to the extent of their power, and that is as much as

Catholicism ever did. They would persecute now if they had the power.

There is not a man in this vast audience who will say that the church

should have temporal power. There is not one of you but what believes

in the eternal divorce of church and state. Is it possible that the

only people who are fit to go to heaven are the only people not fit to

rule mankind?

I saw at the same time the rack. This was a box like the bed of a

wagon, with a windlass at each end, and ratchets to prevent slipping.

Over each windlass went chains, and when some man had, for instance,

denied the doctrine of the trinity, a doctrine it is necessary to

believe in order to get to Heaven--but, thank the Lord, you don't have

to understand it. This man merely denied that three times one was one,

or maybe he denied that there was ever any Son in the world exactly as

old as his father, or that there ever was a boy eternally older than

his mother--then they put that man on the rack. Nobody had ever been

persecuted for calling God bad--it has always been for calling him

good. When I stand here to say that, if there is a Hell, God is a

fiend, they say that is very bad. They say I am trying to tear down

the institutions of public virtue. But let me tell you one thing:

there is no reformation in fear--you can scare a man so that he won't

do it sometimes, but I will swear you can't scare him so bad that he

won't want to do it. Then they put this man on the rack and priests

began turning these levers, and kept turning until the ankles, the

hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists, and all the joints of the

victim were dislocated, and he was wet with agony, and standing by was

a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In

mercy? No. But in order that they might have the pleasure of racking

him once more. And this was the Christian spirit. This was done in the

name of civilization, in the name of religion, and all these wretches

who did it died in peace. There is not an orthodox preacher in the

city that has not a respect for every one of them. As, for instance,

for John Calvin, who was a murderer and nothing but a murderer, who

would have disgraced an ordinary gallows by being hanged upon it.

These men when they came to die were not frightened. God did not send

any devils into their death-rooms to make mouths at them. He reserved

them for Voltaire, who brought religious liberty to France. He

reserved them for Thomas Paine, who did more for liberty than all the

churches. But all the inquisitors died with the white hands of peace

folded over the breast of piety. And when they died, the room was

filled with the rustle of the wings of angels, waiting to bear the

wretches to Heaven.

When I read these frightful books it seems to me sometimes as though I

had suffered all these things myself. It seems sometimes as though I

had stood upon the shore of exile, and gazed with tearful eyes toward

home and native land; it seems to me as though I had been staked out

upon the sands of the sea, and drowned by the inexorable, advancing

tide; 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

Inquisition, and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of

release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and saw 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, while I so feel, I swear that

while I live I will do what little I can to augment the liberties of

man, woman and child. I denounce slavery and superstition everywhere.

I believe in liberty, and happiness, and love, and joy in this world.

I am amazed that any man ever had the impudence to try and do another

man's thinking. I have just as good a right to talk theology as a

minister. If they all agreed I might admit it was a science, but as

all disagree, and the more they study the wider they get apart, I may

be permitted to suggest, it is not a science. When no two will tell

you the road to Heaven,--that is, giving you the same route--and if you

would inquire of them all, you would just give up trying to go there,

and say I may as well stay where I am, and let the Lord come to me.

Do you know that this world has not been fit for a lady and gentleman

to live in for twenty-five years, just on account of slavery. It was

not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade,

and up to that time her judges, her priests occupying her pulpits, the

members of the royal family, 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. 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."

For two hundred years the Christians of the United States deliberately

turned the cross of Christ into a whipping-post. Christians bred

hounds to catch other Christians. Let me show you what the Bible has

done for mankind: "Servants, be obedient to your masters." The only

word coming from that sweet Heaven was, "Servants, obey your masters."

Frederick Douglas told me that he had lectured upon the subject of

freedom twenty years before he was permitted to set his foot in a

church. I tell you the world has not been fit to live in for

twenty-five years. Then all the people used to cringe and crawl to

preachers. Mr. Buckle, in his history of civilization, shows that men

were even struck dead for speaking impolitely to a priest. God would

not stand it. See how they used to crawl before cardinals, bishops and

popes. It is not so now. 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.

The time will come when no matter how much money a man has, he will not

be respected unless he is using it for the benefit of his fellow-men.

It will soon be here. 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

Caesar, that he might become a member of the French academy. The

emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their fellows.

Compare, for instance, King William and Helmholtz. The king is one of

the anointed by the Most High, as they claim--one upon whose head has

been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare this king with

Helmholtz, 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. And so it is the world over. The time is coming when a man

will be rated at his real worth, and that by his brain and heart. We

care nothing now about an officer unless he fills his place. No matter

if he is president, if he rattles in the place nobody cares anything

about him. I might give you an instance in point, but I won't. The

world is getting better and grander and nobler every day.

Now, if men have been slaves, if they have crawled in the dust before

one another, what shall I say of women? They have been the slaves of

men. It took thousands of ages to bring women from abject slavery up

to the divine height of marriage. I believe in marriage. If there is

any Heaven upon earth, it is in the family by the fireside and the

family is a unit of government. Without the family relation that is

tender, pure and true, civilization is impossible. Ladies, the

ornaments you wear upon your persons tonight 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. Nearly every civilization in this world accounts for the

devilment in it by the crimes of woman. They say woman brought all the

trouble into the world. I don't care if she did. I would rather live in

a world full of trouble with the women I love, than to live in Heaven

with nobody but men. I read in a book an account of the creation of

the world. The book I have taken pains to say was not written by any

God. And why do I say so? Because I can write a far better book

myself. Because it is full of barbarism. Several ministers in this

city have undertaken to answer me--notably those who don't believe the

Bible themselves. I want to ask these men one thing. I want them to

be fair.

Every minister in the City of Chicago that answers me, and those who

have answered me had better answer me again--I want them to say, and

without any sort of evasion--without resorting to any pious tricks--I

want them to say whether they believe that the Eternal God of this

universe ever upheld the crime of polygamy. Say it square and fair.

Don't begin to talk about that being a peculiar time, and that God was

easy on the prejudices of those old fellows. I want them to answer

that question and to answer it squarely, which they haven't done. Did

this God, which you pretend to worship, ever sanction the institution

of human slavery? Now, answer fair. Don't slide around it. Don't

begin and answer what a bad man I am, nor what a good man Moses was.

Stick to the text. Do you believe in a God that allowed a man to be

sold from his children? Do you worship such an infinite monster? And

if you do, tell your congregation whether you are not ashamed to admit

it. Let every minister who answers me again tell whether he believes

God commanded his general to kill the little dimpled babe in the

cradle. Let him answer it. Don't say that those were very bad times.

Tell whether He did it or not, and then your people will know whether

to hate that God or not. Be honest. Tell them whether that God in war

captured young maidens and turned them over to the soldiers; and then

ask the wives and sweet girls of your congregation to get down on their

knees and worship the infinite fiend that did that thing. Answer! It

is your God I am talking about, and if that is what God did, please

tell your congregation what, under the same circumstances, the devil

would have done. Don't tell your people that is a poem. Don't tell

your people that is pictorial. That won't do. Tell your people whether

it is true or false. That is what I want you to do.

In this book I read about God's making the world and one man. That is

all He intended to make. The making of woman was a second thought,

though I am willing to admit that as a rule second thoughts are best.

This God made a man and put him in a public park. In a little while He

noticed that the man got lonesome; then He found He had made a mistake,

and that He would have to make somebody to keep him company. But having

used up all the nothing He originally used in making the world and one

man, He had to take a part of a man to start a woman with. So He

causes sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, I do not say this

story is true. After the sleep had fallen on this man the Supreme

Being took a rib, or, as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of

him, and from that He made a woman; and I am willing to swear, taking

into account the amount and quality of the raw material used, this was

the most magnificent job ever accomplished in this world. 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--and of course they did it. I would have

done it in fifteen minutes, 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. And then

trouble commenced and we have been at it ever since. Nearly all the

religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a

story as that.

Well, 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 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. It is a great deal better to be mistaken in dates than to go to

the devil. In this other account the Supreme 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 aeolian harps. 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."

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, nothing but the nightingale

singing its song of joy and pain, as though the thorn already touched

its heart. 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--and his name was Adami, and the woman's name was

Heva--said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a little." He wanted to

go West. He went to the western 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 was naught but rocks and sand,

and the Supreme Brahma cursed them both to the lowest Hell.

Then it was that the man spoke--and I have liked him ever since for

it--"Curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine."

That's the kind of a man to start a world with. The Supreme Brahma

said: "I will save her but not thee." And 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--and I have liked him ever

since I read it--"I will spare you both, and watch over you and your

children forever." Honor bright, is that not the better and grander

story?

And in that same book I find this "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." In the same book this:

"Blessed is that man, and beloved of all the gods, who is afraid of no

man, and of whom no man is afraid." Magnificent character! A

missionary certainly ought to talk to that man. And I find this:

"Never will I accept private, individual salvation, but rather will I

stay and work, strive and suffer, until every soul from every star has

been brought home to God." Compare that with the Christian that

expects to go to Heaven while the world is rolling over Niagara to an

eternal and unending Hell. So I say that religion lays all the crime

and troubles of this world at the beautiful feet of woman. And then

the church has the impudence to say that it has exalted women. I

believe that marriage is a perfect partnership; that woman has every

right that man has--and one more--the right to be protected. Above all

men in the world I hate a stingy man--a man that will make his wife beg

for money. "What did you do with the dollar I gave you last week? And

what are you going to do with this?" It is vile. No gentleman will

ever be satisfied with the love of a beggar and a slave--no gentleman

will ever be satisfied except with the love of an equal. What kind of

children does a man expect to have with a beggar for their mother? A

man can not be so poor but that he can be generous, and if you only

have one dollar in the word and you have got to spend it, spend it like

a lord--spend it as though it were a dry leaf, and you the owner of

unbounded forests--spend it as though you had a wilderness of your own.

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. And this is my advice to the poor. For you can never be so poor

that whatever you do you can't do in a grand and manly way. I hate a

cross man. What right has a man to assassinate the joy of life? When

you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will, even

in the night, burst 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--the head of the family--the boss. I was reading

the other day of an apparatus invented for the ejecting of gentlemen

who subsist upon free lunches. It is so arranged that when the fellow

gets both hands into the victuals, a large hand descends upon him, jams

his hat over his eyes--he is seized, turned toward the door, and just

in the nick of time an immense boot comes from the other side, kicks

him in italics, sends him out over the sidewalk and lands him rolling

in the gutter. I never hear of such a man--a boss--that I don't feel

as though that machine ought to be brought into requisition for his

benefit.

Love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent of interest on the

outlay. Love is the only thing in which the height of extravagance is

the last degree of economy. It is the only thing, I tell you. Joy is

wealth. Love is the legal tender of the soul--and you need not be rich

to be happy. We have all been raised on success in this country.

Always been talked with about being successful, and have never thought

ourselves very rich unless we were the possessors of some magnificent

mansion, and unless our names have been between the putrid lips of

rumor we could not be happy. Every little boy is striving to be this

and be that. I tell you the happy man is the successful man. The man

that has won the love of one good woman is a successful man. The man

that has been the emperor of one good heart, and that heart embraced

all his, has been a success. If another has been the emperor of the

round world and has never loved and been loved, his life is a failure.

It won't do. Let us teach our children the other way, that the happy

man is the successful man, and he who is a happy man is the one who

always tries to make some one else happy.

The man who marries a woman to make her happy; that marries her as much

for her own sake as for his own; not the man that thinks his wife is

his property, who thinks that the title to her belongs to him--that the

woman is the property of the man; wretches who get mad at their wives

and then shoot them down in the street because they think the woman is

their property. I tell you it is not necessary to be rich and great

and powerful to be happy.

A little while ago I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a

magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and

gazed upon the sarcophagus of black Egyptian marble, where rest at last

the ashes of the restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and

thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.

I saw him walk upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide--I

saw him at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of

Paris--I saw him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing

the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand--I saw him in Egypt

in the shadows of the pyramids--I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle

the eagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at

Marengo--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 Leipzig in defeat

and disaster--driven by a million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched

like a wild beast--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. I thought of the

orphans and widows he had made--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, with my children upon my knees and their arms about me; 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. It is not necessary to

be rich in order to be happy. It is only necessary to be in love.

Thousands of men go to college and get a certificate that they have an

education, and that certificate is in Latin and they stop studying, and

in two years, to save their life, they couldn't read the certificate

they got.

It is mostly so in marrying. They stop courting when they get married.

They think, we have won her and that is enough. Ah! the difference

before and after! How well they look! How bright their eyes! How

light their steps, and how full they were of generosity and laughter! I

tell you a man should consider himself in good luck if a woman loves

him when he is doing his level best! Good luck! Good luck! And

another thing that is the cause of much trouble is that people don't

count fairly. They do what they call putting their best foot forward.

That means lying a little. I say put your worst foot forward. If you

have got any faults admit them. If you drink say so and quit it. If

you chew and smoke and swear, say so. If some of your kindred are not

very good people, say so. If you have had two or three that died on

the gallows, or that ought to have died there, say so. Tell all your

faults and if after she knows your faults she says she will have you,

you have got the dead wood on that woman forever. I claim that there

should be perfect equality in the home, and I can not think of anything

nearer Heaven than a home where there is true republicanism and true

democracy at the fireside. All are equal.

And then, do you know, I like to think that love is eternal; that if

you really love the woman, for her sake, you will love her no matter

what she may do; that if she really loves you, for your sake, the same;

that love does not look at alterations, 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 I like to think of it. If a man loves

a woman she does not ever grow old to him. And the woman who really

loves a man does not see that he is growing older. He is not decrepit

to her. He is not tremulous. He is not old. He is not bowed. She

always sees the same gallant fellow that won her hand and heart. I

like to think of it in that way, and as Shakespeare says: "Let Time

reach with his sickle as far as ever he can; although he can reach

ruddy cheeks and ripe lips, and flashing eyes, he can not quite reach

love." I like to think of it. We will go down the hill of life

together, and enter the shadow one with the other, and as we go down we

may hear the ripple of the laughter of our grandchildren, and the

birds, and spring, and youth, and love will sing once more upon the

leafless branches of the tree of age. I love to think of it in that

way--absolute equals, happy, happy, and free, all our own.

But some people say: "Would you allow a woman to vote?" Yes, if she

wants to; that is her business, not mine. If a woman wants to vote, I

am too much of a gentleman to say she shall not. But, they say, woman

has not sense enough to vote. It don't take much. But it seems to me

there are some questions, as for instance, the question of peace or

war, that a woman should be allowed to vote upon. A woman that has

sons to be offered on the altar of that Moloch, it seems to me that

such a woman should have as much right to vote upon the question of

peace and war as some thrice-besotted sot that reels to the ballot box

and deposits his vote for war. But if women have been slaves, what

shall we say of the little children, born in the sub-cellars, children

of poverty, children of crime, children of wealth, children that are

afraid when they hear their names pronounced by the lips of their

mother, children that cower in fear when they hear the footsteps of

their brutal father, the flotsam and jetsam upon the rude sea of life,

my heart goes out to them one and all.

Children have all the rights that we have and one more, and that is to

be protected. Treat your children in that way. Suppose your child

tells a lie. Don't pretend that the whole world is going into

bankruptcy. Don't pretend that that is the first lie ever told. Tell

them, like an honest man, that you have told hundreds of lies yourself,

and tell the dear little darling that it is not the best way; that it

soils the soul. Think of the man that deals in stocks whipping his

children for putting false rumors afloat! Think of an orthodox

minister whipping his own flesh and blood, for not telling all it

thinks! Think of that! Think of a lawyer for beating his child for

avoiding the truth! when the old man makes about half his living that

way. A lie is born of weakness on one side and tyranny on the other.

That is what it is. Think of a great big man coming at a little bit of

a child with a club in his hand! What is the little darling to do?

Lie, of course. I think that mother Nature put that ingenuity into the

mind of the child, when attacked by a parent, to throw up a little

breastwork in the shape of a lie to defend itself. When a great

general wins a battle by what they call strategy, we build monuments to

him. What is strategy? Lies. Suppose a man as much larger than we are

as we are larger than a child five years of age, should come at us with

a liberty pole in his hand, and in tones of thunder want to know "who

broke that plate," there isn't one of us, not excepting myself, that

wouldn't swear that we never had seen that plate in our lives, or that

it was cracked when we got it.

Another good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it

yourself. Keep your word with your child the same as you would with

your banker. If you tell a child you will do anything, either do it or

give the child the reason why. Truth is born of confidence. It comes

from the lips of love and liberty. I was over in Michigan the other

day. There was a boy over there at Grand Rapids about five or six years

old, a nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made--what

you might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had

promised to take him out riding. They had promised to take him out

riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without

him. Well, after while that got kind of played out with the little

boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick on him again.

They went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode

away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with

his nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment.

He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to

his father and mother, "There go the two d--t liars in the State of

Michigan!" When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light

of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even the

darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world.

I want to tell you tonight that you can not get the robe of hypocrisy

on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through

every veil, and if you pretend to your children that you are the best

man that ever lived--the bravest man that ever lived--they will find

you out every time. They will not have the same opinion of father when

they grow up that they used to have. They will have to be in mighty

bad luck if they ever do meaner things than you have done. When your

child confesses to you that it has committed a fault, take that child

in your arms, and let it feel your heart beat against its heart, and

raise your children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams

to you along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the whip from

the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the

brutal will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip.

Every little while some door is thrown open in some orphan asylum, and

there we see the bleeding back of a child whipped beneath the roof that

was raised by love. It is infamous, and a man that can't raise a child

without the whip ought not to have a child. If there is one of you

here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you

something. Have your photograph taken at the time and let it show your

face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes

swimming in tears, and the little chin dimpled with fear, looking like

a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. If that little child

should die, I can not think of a sweeter way to spend an Autumn

afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, when the

maples are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are

coming from the sad heart of the earth, and sit down upon that mound,

and look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, now dust, that

you beat. Just think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a

child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when

they were withered beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I

had struck. Some Christians act as though they really thought that

when Christ said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," He had a

rawhide under His coat. They act as though they really thought that He

made that remark simply to get the children within striking distance.

I have known Christians to turn their children from their doors,

especially a daughter, and then get down on their knees and pray to God

to watch over them and help them. I will never ask God to help my

children unless I am doing my level best in that same wretched line. I

will tell you what I say to my girls: "Go where you will; do what crime

you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may; in all the storms

and winds and earthquakes of life, no matter what you do, you never can

commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms or my heart to you.

As long as I live you have one sincere friend." Call me an atheist;

call me an infidel because I hate the God of the Jew--which I do. I

intend so to live that when I die my children can come to my grave and

truthfully say: "He who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain."

When I was a boy there was one day in each week too good for a child to

be happy in. In these good old times Sunday commenced when the sun

went down on Saturday night and closed when the sun went down on Sunday

night. We commenced Saturday to get a good ready. And when the sun

went down Saturday night there was a gloom deeper than midnight that

fell upon the house. You could not crack hickory nuts then. And if

you were caught chewing gum, it was only another evidence of the total

depravity of the human heart. Well, after a while we got to bed sadly

and sorrowfully after having heard Heaven thanked that we were not all

in Hell. And I sometimes used to wonder how the mercy of God lasted as

long as it did, because I recollected that on several occasions I had

not been at school, when I was supposed to be there. Why I was not

burned to a crisp was a mystery to me. The next morning we got ready

for church--all solemn, and when we got there the minister was up in

the pulpit, about twenty feet high, and he commenced at Genesis about

"The fall of man," and he went on to about twenty thirdly; then he

struck the second application, and when he struck the application I

knew he was about half way through. And then he went on to show the

scheme how the Lord was satisfied by punishing the wrong man. Nobody

but a God would have thought of that ingenious way. Well, when he got

through that, then came the catechism--the chief end of man. Then my

turn came, and we sat along on a little bench where our feet came

within about fifteen inches of the floor, and the dear old minister

used to ask us:

"Boys, do you know that you ought to be in Hell?"

And we answered up as cheerfully as could be expected under the

circumstances.

"Yes, sir."

"Well, boys, do you know that you would go to Hell if you died in your

sins?"