Love is the only bow on life's dark cloud. It is the morning and
the evening star. It shines upon the babe, and sheds its radiance
on the quiet tomb. It is the Mother of Art, inspirer of poet,
patriot and philosopher. It is the air and light to tired
souls--builder of every home, kindler of every fire on every
hearth. It was the first to dream of immortality. It fills the
world with melody--for music is the voice of love. Love is the
magician, the enchanter that changes worthless things to joy, and
makes right-royal kings and queens of common clay. It is the
perfume of that wondrous flower, the heart, and without that sacred
passion, that divine swoon, we are less than beasts; but with it,
earth is heaven and we are gods.
--_Robert G. Ingersoll_
[Illustration: ROBERT G. INGERSOLL]
He was three years old, was Robert Ingersoll. There was a baby boy one
year old, Ebon by name; then there were John, five years, and two elder
sisters.
Little Robert wore a red linsey-woolsey dress, and was a restless,
active youngster with a big head, a round face and a pug-nose. No one
ever asked. "What is it?"--there was "boy" written large in every baby
action and every feature from chubby bare feet to the two crowns of his
close-cropped tow-head.
It was a morning in January, and the snow lay smooth and white over all
those York State hills. The winter sun sent long gleams of light through
the frost-covered panes upon which the children were trying to draw
pictures. Visitors began to arrive--visitors in stiff Sunday clothes,
although it wasn't Sunday. There were aunts, and uncles, and cousins,
and then just neighbors. They filled the little house full. Some of the
men went out and split wood and brought in big armfuls and piled it in
the corner. They moved on tiptoe and talked in whispers. And now and
then they would walk softly into the little parlor by twos and threes
and close the door after them.
This parlor was always a forbidden place to the children; on Sunday
afternoons only were they allowed to go in there, or on prayer-meeting
night.
In this parlor were six haircloth chairs and a sofa to match. In the
center was a little marble-top table, and on it were two red books and a
blue one. On the mantel was a plaster-of-Paris cat at one end and a
bunch of crystallized flowers at the other. There was a "what-not" in
the corner covered with little shells and filled with strange and
wonderful things. There was a "store" carpet, bright red. It was a very
beautiful room, and to look into it was a great privilege.
Little Robert had tried several times to enter the parlor this cold
winter morning, but each time he had been thrust back. Finally he clung
to the leg of a tall man, and was safely inside. It was very cold--one
of the windows was open! He looked about with wondering baby eyes to see
what the people wanted to go in there for!
On two of the haircloth chairs rested a coffin. The baby hands clutched
the side--he drew himself up on tiptoe and looked down at the still,
white face--the face of his mother. Her hands were crossed just so, and
in her fingers was a spray of flowers--he recognized them as the flowers
she had always worn on her Sunday bonnet--a rusty black bonnet--not real
flowers, just "made" flowers.
But why was she so quiet? He had never seen her hands that way before:
those hands were always busy--knitting, sewing, cooking, weaving,
scrubbing, washing!
"Mamma! Mamma!" called the boy.
"Hush, little boy, hush! Your Mamma is dead," said the tall man, and he
lifted the boy in his arms and carried him from the room.
Out in the kitchen, in a crib in the corner, lay the "Other Baby," and
thither little Robert made his way. He patted the sleeping baby brother,
and called aloud in lisping words, "Wake up, Baby, your Mamma is dead!"
And the baby in the crib knew quite as much about it as the toddler in
the linsey-woolsey dress, and the toddler knew as much about death as we
do today. This wee youngster kept thinking how good it was that Mamma
could have such a nice rest--the first rest she had ever known--and just
lie there in the beautiful room and hold her flowers!
* * * * *
Fifty years pass. These children, grown to manhood, are again together.
One, his work done, is at rest. Standing by his bier, the other voices
these deathless words:
"Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two
eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We call aloud,
and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless
lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of
death, hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a
wing.
"He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the
return of health, whispered with his latest breath, 'I am better now.'
Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that
these dear words are true of all the countless dead."
* * * * *
The mother of Ingersoll was a Livingston--a Livingston of right-royal
lineage, tracing to that famous family of Revolutionary fame. To a great
degree she gave up family and social position to become the wife of the
Reverend John Ingersoll, of Vermont, a theolog from the Academy at
Bennington.
He was young and full of zeal--he was called "a powerful preacher." That
he was a man of much strength of intellect, there is ample proof. He did
his duty, said his say, called sinners to repentance, and told what
would be their fate if they did not accept salvation. His desire was to
do good, and therefore he warned men against the wrath to come. He was
an educated man, and all of his beliefs and most of his ideas were
gathered and gleaned from his college professors and Jonathan Edwards.
He loved his beautiful wife and she loved him. She loved him just as all
good women love, with a complete abandon--with heart, mind and strength.
He at first had periods of such abandon, too, but his conscience soon
made him recoil from an affection of which God might be jealous. He
believed that a man should forsake father, mother, wife and child in
order to follow duty--and duty to him was the thing we didn't want to
do. That which was pleasant was not wholly good. And so he strove to
thrust from him all earthly affections, and to love God alone. Not only
this, but he strove to make others love God. He warned his family
against the pride and pomp of the world, and the family income being
something under four hundred dollars, they observed his edict.
Life was a warfare--the devil constantly lay in wait--we must resist.
This man hated evil--he hated evil more than he loved the good. His wife
loved the good more than she hated evil, and he chided her--in love. She
sought to explain her position. He was amazed at her temerity. What
right had a woman to think!--what right had any one to think!
He prayed for her.
And soon she grew to keep her thoughts to herself. Sometimes she would
write them out, and then destroy them before any eyes but her own could
read. Once she went to a neighbor's and saw Paine's "Age of Reason." She
peeped into its pages by stealth, and then put it quickly away. The next
day she went back and read some more, and among other things she read
was this, "To live a life of love and usefulness--to benefit
others--must bring its due reward, regardless of belief."
She thought about it more and more and wondered really if God could and
would damn a person who just went ahead and did the best he could. She
wanted to ask her husband about it--to talk it over with him in the
evening--but she dare not. She knew too well what his answer would
be--for her even to think such thoughts was a sin. And so she just
decided she would keep her thoughts to herself, and be a dutiful wife,
and help her husband in his pastoral work as a minister's wife should.
But her proud spirit began to droop, she ceased to sing at her work, her
face grew wan, yellow and sad. Yet still she worked--there were no
servants to distress her--and when her own work was done she went out
among the neighbors and helped them--she cared for the sick, the infirm,
she dressed the new-born babe, and closed the eyes of the dying.
That this woman had a thirst for liberty, and the larger life, is shown
in that she herself prepared and presented a memorial to the President
of the United States praying that slavery be abolished. So far as I
know, this was the first petition ever prepared in America on the
subject by a woman.
This minister's family rarely remained over two years in a place. At
first they were received with loving arms, and there were donation
parties where cider was spilled on the floors, doughnuts ground into the
carpets, and several haircloth chairs hopelessly wrecked. But the larder
was filled and there was much good-cheer.
I believe I said that the Reverend John Ingersoll was a powerful
preacher: he was so powerful he quickly made enemies. He told men of
their weaknesses in phrase so pointed that necks would be craned to see
how certain delinquents took their medicine. Then some would get up and
tramp out during the sermon in high dudgeon. These disaffected ones
would influence others: contributions grew less, donations ceased, and
just as a matter of bread and butter a new "call" would be angled for,
and the parson's family would pack up--helped by the faction that loved
them, and the one that didn't. Good-bys were said, blessings given--or
the reverse--and the jokers would say, "A change of pastors makes fat
calves."
At one time the Reverend John Ingersoll tried to start an independent
church in New York City. For a year he preached every Sunday at the old
Lyceum Theater, and here it was, on the stage of the theater, in
Eighteen Hundred Thirty-four, that Robert G. Ingersoll was baptized.
But the New York venture failed--starved out was the verdict, and a
country parish extending a call, it was gladly accepted.
Such a life, to such a woman, was particularly wearing. But Mrs.
Ingersoll kept right at her work, always doing for others, until there
came a day when kind neighbors came in and cared for her, looked after
her household, attending this stricken mother--tired out and old at
thirty-one, unaware that she had blessed the world by giving to it a
man-child who was to make an epoch.
The watchers one night straightened the stiffening limbs, clothed the
body in the gown that had been her wedding-dress, and folded the
calloused fingers over the spray of flowers.
"Hush, little boy--your Mamma is dead!" said the tall man, as he lifted
the child and carried him from the room.
* * * * *
From the sleepy little village of Dresden, Yates County, New York, seven
miles from Penn Yan, where Robert Ingersoll was born, to his niche in
the Temple of Fame, was a zigzag journey. But that is Nature's plan--we
make head by tacking. And as the years go by, more and more we see the
line of Ingersoll's life stretching itself straight. Every change to him
meant progress. Success is a question of temperament--it is all a matter
of the red corpuscle. Ingersoll was a success; happy, exuberant, joying
in life, reveling in existence, he marched to the front in every fray.
As a boy he was so full of life that he very often did the wrong thing.
And I have no doubt that wherever he went he helped hold good the
precedent that preachers' boys are not especially angelic. For instance,
we have it on good authority that Bob, aged fourteen, once climbed into
the belfry of a church and removed the clapper, so that the sexton
thought the bell was bewitched. At another time he placed a washtub over
the top of a chimney where a prayer-meeting was in progress, and the
smoke broke up the meeting and gave the good people a foretaste of the
place they believed in. In these stories, told to prove his depravity,
Bob was always climbing somewhere--belfries, steeples, house-tops,
trees, verandas, barn-roofs, bridges. But I have noticed that youngsters
given to the climbing habit usually do something when they grow up.
For these climbing pranks Robert and Ebon were duly reproved with a
stout strap that hung behind the kitchen-door. Whether the parsonage was
in New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio or Illinois--and it dodged all over
these States--the strap always traveled, too. It never got lost. It need
not be said that the Reverend John Ingersoll was cruel or abusive--not
at all: he just believed with Solomon that to spare the rod was to spoil
the child. He loved his children, and if a boy could be saved by so
simple a means as "strap-oil," he was not the man to shirk his duty. He
was neither better nor worse than the average preacher of his day. No
doubt, too, the poverty and constant misunderstandings with
congregations led to much irritability--it is hard to be amiable on
half-rations.
When a stepmother finally appeared upon the scene, there was more
trouble for the children. She was a worthy woman and meant to be kind,
but her heart wasn't big enough to love boys who carried live mice in
their pockets and turned turtles loose in the pantry.
So we find Bob and his brother bundled off to his Grandfather
Livingston's in Saint Lawrence County, New York. Here Bob got his first
real educational advantages. The old man seems to have been a sort of
"Foxy Grandpa": he played, romped, read and studied with the boys and
possibly neutralized some of the discipline they had received.
Of his childhood days Robert Ingersoll very rarely spoke. There was too
much bitterness and disappointment in it all, but it is curious to note
that when he did speak of his boyhood, it was always something that
happened at "Grandfather Livingston's," Finally, the old Grandpa got to
thinking so much of the boys that he wanted to legally adopt them, and
then we find their father taking alarm and bringing them back to the
parsonage, which was then at Elyria, Ohio.
The boys worked at odd jobs, on farms in Summer, clerking in country
stores, driving stage--and be it said to the credit of their father, he
allowed them to keep the money they made. Education comes through doing
things, making things, going without things, taking care of yourself,
talking about things, and when Robert was seventeen he had education
enough to teach a "Deestrick School" in Illinois.
To teach is a good way to get an education. If you want to know all
about a subject, write a book on it, a wise man has said. If you wish to
know all about things, start in and teach them to others.
Bob was eighteen--big and strong, with a good nature and an enthusiasm
that had no limit. There were spelling-bees in his school, and a
debating-society, that had impromptu rehearsals every night at the
grocery. Country people are prone to "argufying"--the greater and more
weighty the question, the more ready are the bucolic Solons to engage
with it. And it is all education to the youth who listens and takes
part--who has the receptive mind.
This love of argument and contention among country people finds vent in
lawsuits. Pigs break into a man's garden and root up the potatoes, and
straightway the owner of the potatoes "has the law" on the owner of the
pigs. This strife is urged on by kind neighbors who take sides, and by
the "setters" at the store, who fire the litigants on to unseemliness.
Local attorneys are engaged and the trial takes place at the
railroad-station, or in the schoolhouse on Saturday. Everybody has
opinions, and overrules the "jedge" next day, or not, as the case may
be.
This petty strife may seem absurd to us, but it is all a part of the
Spirit of the Hive, as Maeterlinck would say. It is better than
dead-level dumbness--better than the subjection of the peasantry of
Europe. These pioneers settle their own disputes. It makes them think,
and a few at least are getting an education. This is the cradle in which
statesmen are rocked.
And so it happened that no one was surprised when, in the year Eighteen
Hundred Fifty-three, there was a sign tacked up over a grocery in
Shawneetown, Illinois, and the sign read thus: "R. G. & E. C. Ingersoll,
Attorneys and Counselors at Law."
* * * * *
Shawneetown, Illinois, was once the pride and pet of Egypt. It was
larger than Chicago, and doubtless it would have become the capital of
the State had it been called Shawnee City. But the name was against it,
and dry rot set in. And so today Shawneetown has the same number of
inhabitants that it had in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-five, and in
Shawneetown are various citizens who boast that the place has held its
own.
Robert Ingersoll had won a case for a certain steamboat captain, and in
gratitude the counsel had been invited by his client to go on an
excursion to Peoria, the head of navigation on the Illinois River. The
lawyer took the trip, and duly reached Peoria after many hairbreadth
'scapes on the imminently deadly sandbar. But a week must be spent at
Peoria while the boat was reloading for her return trip.
There was a railroad war on in Peoria. The town had one railroad, which
some citizens said was enough for any place; others wanted the new
railroad.
Whether the new company should be granted certain terminal
facilities--that was the question. The route had been surveyed, but the
company was forbidden to lay its tracks until the people said "Aye."
So there the matter rested when Robert Ingersoll was waiting for the
stern-wheeler to reload. The captain of the craft had meanwhile
circulated reports about the eloquence and legal ability of his star
passenger. These reports coming to the ears of the manager of the new
railroad, he sought out the visiting lawyer and advised with him.
Railroad Law is a new thing, not quite so new as the Law of the Bicycle,
or the Statutes concerning Automobiling, but older than the Legal
Precedents of the Aeromotor. Railroad Law is an evolution, and the
Railroad Lawyer is a by-product: what Mr. Mantinelli would call a
demnition product.
It was a railroad that gave Robert Ingersoll his first fee in Peoria.
The man was only twenty-three, but semi-pioneer life makes men early,
and Robert Ingersoll stood first in war and first in peace among the
legal lights of Shawneetown. His size made amends for his cherubic face,
and the insignificant nose was more than balanced by the forceful jaw.
The young man was a veritable Greek in form, and his bubbling wit and
ready speech on any theme made him a drawing card at the political
barbecue.
"Bob" at this time didn't know much about railroads--there was no
railroad in Shawneetown--but he was an expert on barbecues. A barbecue
is a gathering where a whole ox is roasted and where there is much hard
cider and effervescent eloquence. Bob would speak to the people about
the advantages of the new railroad; and the opposition could answer if
they wished. Pioneers are always ready for a picnic--they delight in
speeches--they dote on argument and wordy warfare. The barbecue was to
be across the river on Saturday afternoon.
The whole city quit business to go to the barbecue and hear the
speeches.
Bob made the first address. He spoke for two hours about everything and
anything--he told stories, and dealt in love, life, death, politics and
farming--all but railroading. The crowd was delighted--cheers filled the
air.
When the opposition got up to speak and brought forward its profound
reasons and heavy logic, 'most everybody adjourned to the tables to eat
and drink.
Finally there came rumors that something was going on across the river.
The opposition grew nervous and started to go home, but in some
mysterious way the two ferryboats were tied up on the farther bank, and
were deaf and blind to signals.
It was well after dark before the people reached home, and when they got
up the next morning they found the new railroad had a full mile of track
down and engines were puffing at their doors.
Bob made another speech in the public square, and cautioned everybody to
be law-abiding. The second railroad had arrived--it was a good thing--it
meant wealth, prosperity and happiness for everybody. And even if it
didn't, it was here and could not be removed except by legal means. And
we must all be law-abiding citizens--let the matter be determined by the
courts. Then there were a few funny stories, and cheers were given for
the speaker.
On the next trip of the little stern-wheeler the young lawyer and his
brother arrived. They hadn't much baggage, but they carried a tin sign
that they proceeded to tack up over a store on Adams Street. It read
thus: "R. G. & E. C. Ingersoll, Attorneys and Counselors at Law." And
there the sign was to remain for twenty-five years.
* * * * *
At Peoria, the Ingersoll Brothers did not have to wait long for clients.
Ebon was the counselor, Robert the pleader, and some still have it that
Ebon was the stronger, just as we hear that Ezekiel Webster was a more
capable man than Daniel--which was probably the truth.
The Ingersolls had not been long at Peoria before Robert had a case at
Groveland, a town only a few miles away, and a place which, like
Shawneetown, has held its own.
The issue was the same old classic--hogs had rooted up the man's garden,
and then the hogs had been impounded. This time there was a tragedy, for
before the hogs were released the owner had been killed.
The people for miles had come to town to hear the eloquent young lawyer
from Peoria. The taverns were crowded, and not having engaged a room,
the attorney for the defense was put to straits to find a place in which
to sleep. In this extremity 'Squire Parker, the first citizen of the
town, invited young Ingersoll to his house.
Parker was a character in that neck of the woods--he was an "infidel,"
and a terror to all the clergy 'round about. And strangely enough--or
not--his wife believed exactly as he did, and so did their daughter Eva,
a beautiful girl of nineteen. But 'Squire Parker got into no argument
with his guest--their belief was the same. Probably we would now call
the Parkers simply radical Unitarians. Their kinsman, Theodore Parker,
expressed their faith, and they had no more use for a "personal devil"
that he had. The courage of the young woman in stating her religious
views had almost made her an outcast in the village, and here she was
saying the same things in Groveland that Robert was saying in Peoria.
She was the first woman he ever knew who had ideas.
It was one o'clock before he went to bed that night--his head was in a
whirl. It was a wonder he didn't lose his case the next day, but he
didn't.
He cleared his client and won a bride.
In a few months Robert Ingersoll and Eva Parker were married.
Never were man and woman more perfectly mated than this couple. And how
much the world owes to her sustaining love and unfaltering faith, we can
not compute; but my opinion is that if it had not been for Eva
Parker--twice a daughter of the Revolution, whose ancestors fought side
by side with the Livingstons--we should never have heard of Robert
Ingersoll as the maker of an epoch. It is love that makes the world go
'round--and it is love that makes the orator and fearless thinker, no
less than poet, painter and musician.
No man liveth unto himself alone: we demand the approval and approbation
of another: we write and speak for some One; and our thought coming back
from this One approved, gives courage and that bold determination which
carries conviction home. Before the world believes in us we must believe
in ourselves, and before we fully believe in ourselves this some One
must believe in us. Eva Parker believed in Robert Ingersoll, and it was
her love and faith that made him believe in himself and caused him to
fling reasons into the face of hypocrisy and shower with sarcasm and
ridicule the savage and senseless superstitions that paraded themselves
as divine.
Wendell Phillips believed in himself because Ann never doubted him.
Without Ann he would not have had the courage to face that twenty years'
course of mobs. If it had ever occurred to him that the mob was right he
would have gone down in darkness and defeat; but with Ann such a
suspicion was not possible. He pitted Ann's faith against the prejudice
of centuries--two with God are a majority.
It was Eva's faith that sustained Robert. In those first years of
lecturing she always accompanied him, and at his lectures sat on the
stage in the wings and gloried in his success. He did not need her to
protect him from the mob, but he needed her to protect him from himself.
It is only perfect love that casteth out fear.
* * * * *
There is a little book called, "Ingersoll as He Is," which is being
circulated by some earnest advocates of truth.
The volume is a vindication, a refutation and an apology. It takes up a
goodly list of zealous calumniators and cheerful prevaricators and tacks
their pelts on the barn-door of obliquity.
That Ingersoll won the distinction of being more grossly misrepresented
than any other man of his time, there is no doubt. This was to his
advantage--he was advertised by his rabid enemies no less than by his
loving friends. But his good friends who are putting out this
vindication should cultivate faith, and know that there is a God, or
Something, who looks after the lies and the liars--we needn't.
A big man should never be cheapened by a defense. Life is its own excuse
for being, and every life is its own apology. Silence is better than
wordy refutation. People who want to believe the falsehoods told of this
man, or any other, will continue to believe them until the crack o'
doom.
Most accusations contain a certain basis of truth, but they may be no
less libels on that account. One zealous advocate, intent on loving his
supposed enemy, printed a thrilling story about Ingersoll being taken
prisoner during the war, while taking refuge in a pig-pen. To this some
of Bob's friends interposed a fierce rejoinder declaring that Bob stood
like Falstaff at Gadshill and fought the rogues in buckram to a
standstill.
Heaven forfend me from my friends--I can withstand mine enemies alone!
I am quite ready to believe that Bob, being attacked by an overwhelming
force, suddenly bethought him of an engagement, and made a swift run for
safety. The impeccable man who has never done a cowardly thing, nor a
mean thing, is no kinsman of mine! The saintly hero who has not had his
heels run away with his head, and sought safety in a friendly
pig-pen--aye! and filled his belly with the husks that the swine did
eat--has dropped something out of his life that he will have to go back
for and pick up in another incarnation. We love men for their
limitations and weaknesses, no less than for their virtues. A fault may
bring a man very close to us. Have we, too, not sought safety in
pig-pens! The people who taunt other people with having taken temporary
refuge in a pig-pen are usually those who live in pig-pens the whole
year 'round.
The one time in the life of Savonarola when he comes nearest to us is
when his tortured flesh wrenched from his spirit a recantation. And who
can forget that cry of Calvary, "My God, my God! Why hast thou forsaken
me!" That call for help, coming to us across twenty centuries, makes the
man, indeed, our Elder Brother.
And let it here be stated that even Bob's bitterest foe never declared
that the man was a coward by nature, nor that the business of his life
was hiding in pig-pens. The incident named was exceptional and therefore
noteworthy; let us admit it, at least not worry ourselves into a passion
denying it. Let us also stipulate the truth that Bob could never quite
overcome the temptation to take an unfair advantage of his opponent in
an argument. He laid the fools by the heels and suddenly, 'gainst all
the rules of either Roberts or Queensbury.
To go after the prevaricators, and track them to their holes, is to make
much of little, and lift the liars into the realm of equals. This story
of the pig-pen I never heard of until Ingersoll's friends denied it in a
book.
Just one instance to show how trifles light as air are to the zealous
confirmation strong as holy writ. In April, Eighteen Hundred
Ninety-four, Ingersoll lectured at Utica, New York. The following Sunday
a local clergyman denounced the lecturer as a sensualist, a
gourmand--one totally indifferent to decency and the feelings and rights
of others. Then the preacher said, "At breakfast in this city last
Thursday, Ingersoll ordered everything on the bill of fare, and then
insulted and roundly abused the waiter-girl because she did not bring
things that were not in the hotel."
I happened to be present at that meal. It was an "early-train
breakfast," and the bill of fare for the day had not been printed. The
girl came in, and standing at the Colonel's elbow, in genuine
waiter-girl style, mumbled this: "Ham and eggs, mutton-chops,
beefsteak, breakfast bacon, codfish balls and buckwheat cakes."
And Bob solemnly said: "Ham and eggs, mutton-chops, beefsteak, breakfast
bacon, codfish balls and buckwheat cakes."
In amazement the girl gasped, "What?" And then Bob went over it
backward: "Buckwheat cakes, codfish balls, breakfast bacon, beefsteak,
mutton-chops, and ham and eggs."
This memory test raised a laugh that sent a shout of mirth all through
the room, in which even the girl joined.
"Haven't you anything else, my dear?" asked the great man in a sort of
disappointed way.
"I think we have tripe and pig's feet," said the girl.
"Bring a bushel," said Bob; "and say, tell the cook I'd like a dish of
peacock-tongues on the side." The infinite good nature of it all caused
another laugh from everybody.
The girl brought everything Bob ordered except the peacock-tongues, and
this order supplied the lecturer and his party of four. The waitress
found a dollar-bill under Bob's plate, and the cook who stood in the
kitchen-door and waved a big spoon, and called, "Good-by, Bob!" got
another dollar for himself.
Ingersoll carried mirth, and joy, and good-cheer, and radiated a feeling
of plenitude wherever he went. He was a royal liver and a royal spender.
"If I had but a dollar," he used to say, "I'd spend it as though it
were a dry leaf, and I were the owner of an unbounded forest." He
maintained a pension-list of thirty persons or more for a decade, spent
upwards of forty thousand dollars a year, and while the fortune he left
for his wife and children was not large, as men count things on 'Change,
yet it is ample for their ease and comfort. His family always called him
"Robert" with an almost idolatrous flavor of tender love in the word.
But to the world who hated him and the world who loved him, he was just
plain "Bob." To trainmen, hackdrivers, and the great singers, poets and
players, he was "Bob." "Dignity is the mask behind which we hide our
ignorance." When half a world calls a man by a nickname, it is a patent
to nobility--small men are never so honored.
"Good-by, Bob," called the white-aproned cook as he stood in the
kitchen-door and waved his big spoon.
"Good-by, Brother, and mind you get those peacock-tongues by the time I
get back," answered Bob.
As to Ingersoll's mental evolution we can not do better than to let him
tell the story himself:
Like the most of us, I was raised among people who knew--who were
certain. They did not reason or investigate. They had no doubts.
They knew they had the truth. In their creed there was no guess--no
perhaps. They had a revelation from God. They knew the beginning of
things. They knew that God commenced to create one Monday morning
and worked until Saturday night, four thousand and four years
before Christ. They knew that in the eternity--back of that
morning, He had done nothing. They knew that it took Him six days
to make the earth--all plants, all animals, all life, and all the
globes that wheel in space. They knew exactly what He did each day
and when He rested. They knew the origin, the cause, of evil, of
all crime, of all disease and death.
They not only knew the beginning, but they knew the end. They knew
that life had one path and one road. They knew that the path,
grass-grown and narrow, filled with thorns and nettles, infested
with vipers, wet with tears, stained by bleeding feet, led to
heaven, and that the road, broad and smooth, bordered with fruits
and flowers, filled with laughter and song, and all the happiness
of human love, led straight to hell. They knew that God was doing
His best to make you take the path and that the Devil used every
art to keep you in the road.
They knew that there was a perpetual battle waged between the great
Powers of good and evil for the possession of human souls. They
knew that many centuries ago God had left His throne and had been
born a babe into this poor world--that He had suffered death for
the sake of man--for the sake of saving a few. They also knew that
the human heart was utterly depraved, so that man by nature was in
love with wrong and hated God with all his might.
At the same time they knew that God created man in His own image
and was perfectly satisfied with His work. They also knew that He
had been thwarted by the Devil--who with wiles and lies had
deceived the first of human kind. They knew that in consequence of
that, God cursed the man and woman; the man with toil, the woman
with slavery and pain, and both with death; and that He cursed the
earth itself with briars and thorns, brambles and thistles. All
these blessed things they knew. They knew too all that God had done
to purify and elevate the race. They knew all about the Flood--knew
that God, with the exception of eight, drowned all His
children--the old and young--the bowed patriarch and the dimpled
babe--the young man and the merry maiden--the loving mother and the
laughing child--because His mercy endureth forever. They knew, too,
that He drowned the beasts and birds--everything that walked or
crawled or flew--because His loving-kindness is over all His works.
They knew that God, for the purpose of civilizing His children, had
devoured some with earthquakes, destroyed some with storms of fire,
killed some with his lightnings, millions with famine, with
pestilence, and sacrificed countless thousands upon the fields of
war. They knew that it was necessary to believe these things and to
love God. They knew that there could be no salvation except by
faith, and through the atoning blood of Jesus Christ.
All who doubted or denied would be lost. To live a moral and honest
life--to keep your contracts, to take care of wife and child--to
make a happy home--to be a good citizen, a patriot, a just and
thoughtful man, was simply a respectable way of going to hell.
God did not reward men for being honest, generous and brave, but
for the act of faith--without faith, all the so-called virtues
were sins, and the men who practised these virtues, without faith,
deserved to suffer eternal pain.
All of these comforting and reasonable things were taught by the
ministers in their pulpits--by teachers in Sunday schools and by
parents at home. The children were victims. They were assaulted in
the cradle--in their mother's arms. Then, the schoolmaster carried
on the war against their natural sense, and all the books they read
were filled with the same impossible truths. The poor children were
helpless. The atmosphere they breathed was filled with lies--lies
that mingled with their blood.
In those days ministers depended on revivals to save souls and
reform the world.
In the Winter, navigation having closed, business was mostly
suspended. There were no railways, and the only means of
communication were wagons and boats. Generally the roads were so
bad that the wagons were laid up with the boats. There were no
operas, no theaters, no amusements except parties and balls. The
parties were regarded as worldly and the balls as wicked. For real
and virtuous enjoyment the good people depended on revivals.
The sermons were mostly about the pains and agonies of hell, the
joys and ecstasies of heaven, salvation by faith, and the efficacy
of the atonement. The little churches, in which the services were
held, were generally small, badly ventilated, and exceedingly warm.
The emotional sermons, the sad singing, the hysterical amens, the
hope of heaven, the fear of hell, caused many to lose the little
sense they had. They became substantially insane. In this
condition they flocked to the "mourners' bench"--asked for the
prayers of the faithful--had strange feelings, prayed and wept and
thought they had been "born again." Then they would tell their
experience--how wicked they had been--how evil had been their
thoughts, their desires, and how good they had suddenly become.
They used to tell the story of an old woman who, in telling her
experience, said, "Before I was converted, before I gave my heart
to God, I used to lie and steal; but now, thanks to the grace and
blood of Jesus Christ, I have quit 'em both, in a great measure."
Of course, all the people were not exactly of one mind. There were
some scoffers, and now and then, some man had sense enough to laugh
at the threats of priests and make a jest of hell. Some would tell
of unbelievers who had lived and died in peace.
When I was a boy I heard them tell of an old farmer in Vermont. He
was dying. The minister was at his bedside--asked him if he was a
Christian--if he was prepared to die. The old man answered that he
had made no preparations, that he was not a Christian--that he had
never done anything but work. The preacher said that he could give
him no hope unless he had faith in Christ, and that if he had no
faith his soul would certainly be lost.
The old man was not frightened. He was perfectly calm. In a weak
and broken voice he said: "Mr. Preacher, I suppose you noticed my
farm. My wife and I came here more than fifty years ago. We were
just married. It was a forest then and the land was covered with
stones. I cut down the trees, burned the logs, picked up the
stones and laid the walls. My wife spun and wove and worked every
moment. We raised and educated our children--denied ourselves.
During all those years my wife never had a good dress, or a decent
bonnet. I never had a good suit of clothes. We lived on the
plainest food. Our hands, our bodies, are deformed by toil. We
never had a vacation. We loved each other and the children. That is
the only luxury we ever had. Now, I am about to die and you ask me
if I am prepared. Mr. Preacher, I have no fear of the future, no
terror of any other world. There may be such a place as hell--but
if there is, you never can make me believe that it's any worse than
old Vermont."
So they told of a man who compared himself with his dog. "My dog,"
he said, "just barks and plays--has all he wants to eat. He never
works--has no trouble about business. In a little while he dies,
and that is all. I work with all my strength. I have no time to
play. I have trouble every day. In a little while I will die, and
then I go to hell. I wish that I had been a dog."
Well, while the cold weather lasted, while the snows fell, the
revival went on, but when the Winter was over, when the steamboat's
whistle was heard, when business started again, most of the
converts "back-slid" and fell again into their old ways. But the
next Winter they were on hand, ready to be "born again." They
formed a kind of stock company, playing the same parts every Winter
and backsliding every Spring.
The ministers who preached at these revivals were in earnest. They
were zealous and sincere. They were not philosophers. To them
science was the name of a vague dread--a dangerous enemy. They did
not know much, but they believed a great deal. To them hell was a
burning reality--they could see the smoke and flames. The Devil was
no myth. He was an actual person, a rival of God, an enemy of
mankind. They thought that the important business of this life was
to save your soul--that all should resist and scorn the pleasures
of sense, and keep their eyes steadily fixed on the golden gate of
the New Jerusalem. They were unbalanced, emotional, hysterical,
bigoted, hateful, loving, and insane. They really believed the
Bible to be the actual word of God--a book without mistake or
contradiction. They called its cruelties, justice--its absurdities,
mysteries--its miracles, facts, and the idiotic passages were
regarded as profoundly spiritual. They dwelt on the pangs, the
regrets, the infinite agonies of the lost, and showed how easily
they could be avoided, and how cheaply heaven could be obtained.
They told their hearers to believe, to have faith, to give their
hearts to God, their sins to Christ, who would bear their burdens
and make their souls as white as snow.
All this the ministers really believed. They were absolutely
certain. In their minds the Devil had tried in vain to sow the
seeds of doubt.
I heard hundreds of these evangelical sermons--heard hundreds of
the most fearful and vivid descriptions of the tortures inflicted
in hell, of the horrible state of the lost. I supposed that what I
heard was true and yet I did not believe it. I said, "It is," and
then I thought, "It can not be."
From my childhood I had heard read, and read the Bible. Morning and
evening the sacred volume was opened and prayers were said. The
Bible was my first history, the Jews were the first people, and
the events narrated by Moses and the other inspired writers, and
those predicted by prophets, were the all-important things. In
other books were found the thoughts and dreams of men, but in the
Bible were the sacred truths of God.
Yet, in spite of my surroundings, of my education, I had no love
for God. He was so saving of mercy, so extravagant in murder, so
anxious to kill, so ready to assassinate, that I hated Him with all
my heart. At His command, babes were butchered, women violated, and
the white hair of trembling age stained with blood. This God
visited the people with pestilence--filled the houses and covered
the streets with the dying and the dead--saw babes starving on the
empty breasts of pallid mothers, heard the sobs, saw the tears, the
sunken cheeks, the sightless eyes, the new-made graves, and
remained as pitiless as the pestilence.
This God withheld the rain--caused the famine--saw the fierce eyes
of hunger--the wasted forms, the white lips, saw mothers eating
babes, and remained ferocious as famine.
It seems to me impossible for a civilized man to love or worship or
respect the God of the Old Testament. A really civilized man, a
really civilized woman, must hold such a God in abhorrence and
contempt.
But in the old days the good people justified Jehovah in His
treatment of the heathen. The wretches who were murdered were
idolators and therefore unfit to live.
According to the Bible, God had never revealed Himself to these
people and He knew that without a revelation they could not know
that He was the true God. Whose fault was it, then, that they were
heathen?
The Christians said that God had the right to destroy them because
He created them. What did He create them for? He knew when He made
them that they would be food for the sword. He knew that He would
have the pleasure of seeing them murdered.
As a last answer, as a final excuse, the worshipers of Jehovah said
that all these horrible things took place under the "old
dispensation" of unyielding law, and absolute justice, but that
now, under the "new dispensation," all had been changed--the sword
of justice had been sheathed and love enthroned. In the Old
Testament, they said, God is the judge--but in the New, Christ is
the merciful. As a matter of fact, the New Testament is infinitely
worse than the Old. In the Old there is no threat of eternal pain.
Jehovah had no eternal prison--no everlasting fire. His hatred
ended at the grave. His revenge was satisfied when his enemy was
dead.
In the New Testament, death is not the end, but the beginning of
punishment that has no end. In the New Testament the malice of God
is infinite and the hunger of His revenge eternal.
The orthodox God, when clothed in human flesh, told His disciples
not to resist evil, to love their enemies, and when smitten on one
cheek to turn the other; and yet we are told that this same God,
with the same loving lips, uttered these heartless, these fiendish
words: "Depart, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the
Devil and his angels."