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