The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Vol. 07 (of 12) / Dresden Edition—Discussions

AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.

Question. I understand, Colonel Ingersoll, that you have been indicted in the State of Delaware for the crime of blasphemy?

Answer. Well, not exactly indicted. The Judge, who, I believe, is the Chief Justice of the State, dedicated the new court-house at Wilmington to the service of the Lord, by a charge to the grand jury, in which he almost commanded them to bring in a bill of indictment against me, for what he was pleased to call the crime of blasphemy. Now, as a matter of fact, there can be no crime committed by man against God, provided always that a correct definition of the Deity has been given by the orthodox churches. They say that he is infinite. If so, he is conditionless. I can injure a man by changing his conditions. Take from a man water, and he perishes of thirst; take from him air, and he suffocates; he may die from too much, or too little heat. That is because he is a conditioned being. But if God is conditionless, he cannot in any way be affected by what anybody else may do; and, consequently, a sin against God is as impossible as a sin against the principle of the lever or inclined plane. This crime called blasphemy was invented by priests for the purpose of defending doctrines not able to take care of themselves. Blasphemy is a kind of breastwork behind which hypocrisy has crouched for thousands of years. Injustice is the only blasphemy that can be committed, and justice is the only true worship. Man can sin against man, but not against God. But even if man could sin against God, it has always struck me that an infinite being would be entirely able to take care of himself without the assistance of a Chief Justice. Men have always been violating the rights of men, under the plea of defending the rights of God, and nothing, for ages, was so perfectly delightful to the average Christian as to gratify his revenge, and get God in his debt at the same time. Chief Justice Comegys has taken this occasion to lay up for himself what he calls treasures in heaven, and on the last great day he will probably rely on a certified copy of this charge. The fact that he thinks the Lord needs help satisfies me that in that particular neighborhood I am a little ahead.

The fact is, I never delivered but one lecture in Delaware. That lecture, however, had been preceded by a Republican stump speech; and, to tell you the truth, I imagine that the stump speech is what a Yankee would call the heft of the offence. It is really hard for me to tell whether I have blasphemed the Deity or the Democracy. Of course I have no personal feeling whatever against the Judge. In fact he has done me a favor. He has called the attention of the civilized world to certain barbarian laws that disfigure and disgrace the statute books of most of the States. These laws were passed when our honest ancestors were burning witches, trading Quaker children to the Barbadoes for rum and molasses, branding people upon the forehead, boring their tongues with hot irons, putting one another in the pillory, and, generally, in the name of God, making their neighbors as uncomfortable as possible. We have outgrown these laws without repealing them. They are, as a matter of fact, in most communities actually dead; but in some of the States, like Delaware, I suppose they could be enforced, though there might be trouble in selecting twelve men, even in Delaware, without getting one man broad enough, sensible enough, and honest enough, to do justice. I hardly think it would be possible in any State to select a jury in the ordinary way that would convict any person charged with what is commonly known as blasphemy.

All the so-called Christian churches have accused each other of being blasphemers, in turn. The Catholics denounced the Presbyterians as blasphemers, the Presbyterians denounced the Baptists; the Baptists, the Presbyterians, and the Catholics all united in denouncing the Quakers, and they all together denounced the Unitarians—called them blasphemers because they did not acknowledge the divinity of Jesus Christ—the Unitarians only insisting that three infinite beings were not necessary, that one infinite being could do all the business, and that the other two were absolutely useless. This was called blasphemy.

Then all the churches united to call the Universalists blasphemers. I can remember when a Uni-versalist was regarded with a thousand times more horror than an infidel is to-day. There is this strange thing about the history of theology—nobody has ever been charged with blasphemy who thought God bad. For instance, it never would have excited any theological hatred if a man had insisted that God would finally damn everybody. Nearly all heresy has consisted in making God better than the majority in the churches thought him to be. The orthodox Christian never will forgive the Univer-salist for saying that God is too good to damn anybody eternally. Now, all these sects have charged each other with blasphemy, without anyone of them knowing really what blasphemy is. I suppose they have occasionally been honest, because they have mostly been ignorant. It is said that Torquemada used to shed tears over the agonies of his victims and that he recommended slow burning, not because he wished to inflict pain, but because he really desired to give the gentleman or lady he was burning a chance to repent of his or her sins, and make his or her peace with God previous to becoming a cinder.

The root, foundation, germ and cause of nearly all religious persecution is the idea that some certain belief is necessary to salvation. If orthodox Christians are right in this idea, then persecution of all heretics and infidels is a duty. If I have the right to defend my body from attack, surely I should have a like right to defend my soul. Under our laws I could kill any man who was endeavoring, for example, to take the life of my child. How much more would I be justified in killing any wretch who was endeavoring to convince my child of the truth of a doctrine which, if believed, would result in the eternal damnation of that child's soul?

If the Christian religion, as it is commonly understood, is true, no infidel should be allowed to live; every heretic should be hunted from the wide world as you would hunt a wild beast. They should not be allowed to speak, they should not be allowed to poison the minds of women and children; in other words, they should not be allowed to empty heaven and fill hell. The reason I have liberty in this country is because the Christians of this country do not believe their doctrine. The passage from the Bible, "Go ye into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature," coupled with the assurance that, "Whosoever believeth and is baptized shall be saved, and whoso believeth not shall be damned," is the foundation of most religious persecution. Every word in that passage has been fire and fagot, whip and sword, chain and dungeon. That one passage has probably caused more agony among men, women and children, than all the passages of all other books that were ever printed. Now, this passage was not in the book of Mark when originally written, but was put there many years after the gentleman who evolved the book of Mark from his inner consciousness, had passed away. It was put there by the church—that is to say, by hypocrisy and priestly craft, to bind the consciences of men and force them to come under ecclesiastical and spiritual power; and that passage has been received and believed, and been made binding by law in most countries ever since.

What would you think of a law compelling a man to admire Shakespeare, or calling it blasphemy to laugh at Hamlet? Why is not a statute necessary to uphold the reputation of Raphael or of Michael Angelo? Is it possible that God cannot write a book good enough and great enough and grand enough not to excite the laughter of his children? Is it possible that he is compelled to have his literary reputation supported by the State of Delaware?

There is another very strange thing about this business. Admitting that the Bible is the work of God, it is not any more his work than are the sun, the moon and the stars or the earth, and if for disbelieving this Bible we are to be damned forever, we ought to be equally damned for a mistake in geology or astronomy. The idea of allowing a man to go to heaven who swears that the earth is flat, and damning a fellow who thinks it is round, but who-has his honest doubts about Joshua, seems to me to be perfectly absurd. It seems to me that in this view of it, it is just as necessary to be right on the subject of the equator as on the doctrine of infant baptism.

Question. What was in your judgment the motive of Judge Comegys? Is he a personal enemy of yours? Have you ever met him? Have you any idea what reason he had for attacking you?

Answer. I do not know the gentleman, personally. Outside of the political reason I have intimated, I do not know why he attacked me. I once delivered a lecture entitled "What must we do to be Saved?" in the city of Wilmington, and in that lecture I proceeded to show, or at least tried to show, that Matthew, Mark and Luke knew nothing about Christianity, as it is understood in Delaware; and I also endeavored to show that all men have an equal right to think, and that a man is only under obligations to be honest with himself, and with all men, and that he is not accountable for the amount of mind that he has been endowed with—otherwise it might be Judge Comegys himself would be damned—but that he is only accountable for the use he makes of what little mind he has received. I held that the safest thing for every man was to be absolutely honest, and to express his honest thought. After the delivery of this lecture various ministers in Wilmington began replying, and after the preaching of twenty or thirty sermons, not one of which, considered as a reply, was a success, I presume it occurred to these ministers that the shortest and easiest way would be to have me indicted and imprisoned.

In this I entirely agree with them. It is the old and time-honored way. I believe it is, as it always has been, easier to kill two infidels than to answer one; and if Christianity expects to stem the tide that is now slowly rising over the intellectual world, it must be done by brute force, and by brute force alone. And it must be done pretty soon, or they will not have the brute force. It is doubtful if they have a majority of the civilized world on their side to-day. No heretic ever would have been burned if he could have been answered. No theologian ever called for the help of the law until his logic gave out.

I suppose Judge Comegys to be a Presbyterian. Where did he get his right to be a Presbyterian? Where did he get his right to decide which creed is the correct one? How did he dare to pit his little brain against the word of God? He may say that his father was a Presbyterian. But what was his grandfather? If he will only go back far enough he will, in all probability, find that his ancestors were Catholics, and if he will go back a little farther still, that they were barbarians; that at one time they were naked, and had snakes tattooed on their bodies. What right had they to change? Does he not perceive that had the savages passed the same kind of laws that now exist in Delaware, they could have prevented any change in belief? They would have had a whipping-post, too, and they would have said: "Any gentleman found without snakes tattooed upon his body shall be held guilty of blasphemy;" and all the ancestors of this Judge, and of these ministers, would have said, Amen!

What right had the first Presbyterian to be a Presbyterian? He must have been a blasphemer first. A small dose of pillory might have changed his religion. Does this Judge think that Delaware is incapable of any improvement in a religious point of view? Does he think that the Presbyterians of Delaware are not only the best now, but that they will forever be the best that God can make? Is there to be no advancement? Has there been no advancement? Are the pillory and the whipping-post to be used to prevent an excess of thought in the county of New Castle? Has the county ever been troubled that way? Has this Judge ever had symptoms of any such disease? Now, I want it understood that I like this Judge, and my principal reason for liking him is that he is the last of his race. He will be so inundated with the ridicule of mankind that no other Chief Justice in Delaware, or anywhere else, will ever follow his illustrious example. The next Judge will say: "So far as I am concerned, the Lord may attend to his own business, and deal with infidels as he may see proper." Thus great good has been accomplished by this Judge, which shows, as Burns puts it, "that a pot can be boiled, even if the devil tries to prevent it."

Question. How will this action of Delaware, in your opinion, affect the other States?

Answer. Probably a few other States needed an example exactly of this kind. New Jersey, in all probability, will say: "Delaware is perfectly ridiculous," and yet, had Delaware waited awhile, New Jersey might have done the same thing. Maryland will exclaim: "Did you ever see such a fool!" And yet I was threatened in that State. The average American citizen, taking into consideration the fact that we are blest, or cursed, with about one hundred thousand preachers, and that these preachers preach on the average one hundred thousand sermons a week—some of which are heard clear through—will unquestionably hold that a man who happens to differ with all these parsons, ought to have and shall have the privilege of expressing his mind; and that the one hundred thousand clergymen ought to be able to put down the one man who happens to disagree with them, without calling on the army or navy to do it, especially when it is taken into consideration that an infinite God is already on their side. Under these circumstances, the average American will say: "Let him talk, and let the hundred thousand preachers answer him to their hearts' content." So that in my judgment the result of the action of Delaware will be: First, to liberalize all other States, and second, finally to liberalize Delaware itself. In many of the States they have the same idiotic kind of laws as those found in Delaware—with the exception of those blessed institutions for the spread of the Gospel, known as the pillory and the whipping-post. There is a law in Maine by which a man can be put into the penitentiary for denying the providence of God, and the day of judgment. There are similar laws in most of the New England States. One can be imprisoned in Maryland for a like offence.

In North Carolina no man can hold office that has not a certain religious belief; and so in several other of the Southern States. In half the States of this Union, if my wife and children should be murdered before my eyes, I would not be allowed in a court of justice to tell who the murderer was. You see that, for hundreds of years, Christianity has endeavored to put the brand of infamy on every intellectual brow.

Question. I see that one objection to your lectures urged by Judge Comegys on the grand jury is, that they tend to a breach of the peace—to riot and bloodshed.

Answer. Yes; Judge Comegys seems to be afraid that people who love their enemies will mob their friends. He is afraid that those disciples who, when smitten on one cheek turn the other to be smitten also, will get up a riot. He seems to imagine that good Christians feel called upon to violate the commands of the Lord in defence of the Lord's reputation. If Christianity produces people who cannot hear their doctrines discussed without raising mobs, and shedding blood, the sooner it is stopped being preached the better.

There is not the slightest danger of any infidel attacking a Christian for His belief, and there never will be an infidel mob for such a purpose. Christians can teach and preach their views to their hearts' content. They can send all unbelievers to an eternal hell, if it gives them the least pleasure, and they may bang their Bibles as long as their fists last, but no infidel will be in danger of raising a riot to stop them, or put them down by brute force, or even by an appeal to the law, and I would advise Judge Comegys, if he wishes to compliment Christianity, to change his language and say that he feared a breach of the peace might be committed by the infidels—not by the Christians. He may possibly have thought that it was my intention to attack his State. But I can assure him, that if ever I start a warfare of that kind, I shall take some State of my size. There is no glory to be won in wringing the neck of a "Blue Hen!"

Question. I should judge, Colonel, that you are prejudiced against the State of Delaware?

Answer. Not by any means. Oh, no! I know a great many splendid people in Delaware, and since I have known more of their surroundings, my admiration for them has increased. They are, on the whole, a very good people in that State. I heard a story the other day: An old fellow in Delaware has been for the last twenty or thirty years gathering peaches there in their season—a kind of peach tramp. One day last fall, just as the season closed, he was leaning sadly against a tree, "Boys!" said he, "I'd like to come back to Delaware a hundred years from now." The boys asked, "What for?" The old fellow replied: "Just to see how damned little they'd get the baskets by that time." And it occurred to me that people who insist that twenty-two quarts make a bushel, should be as quiet as possible on the subject of blasphemy.

AN INTERVIEW ON CHIEF JUSTICE COMEGYS.

Question. Have you read Chief Justice Comegys' compliments to you before the Delaware grand jury?

Answer. Yes, I have read his charge, in which he relies upon the law passed in 1740. After reading his charge it seemed to me as though he had died about the date of the law, had risen from the dead, and had gone right on where he had left off. I presume he is a good man, but compared with other men, is something like his State when compared with other States.

A great many people will probably regard the charge of Judge Comegys as unchristian, but I do not. I consider that the law of Delaware is in exact accord with the Bible, and that the pillory, the whip-ping-post, and the suppression of free speech are the natural fruit of the Old and New Testament.

Delaware is right. Christianity can not succeed, can not exist, without the protection of law. Take from orthodox Christianity the protection of law, and all church property would be taxed like other property. The Sabbath would be no longer a day devoted to superstition. Everyone could express his honest thought upon every possible subject. Everyone, notwithstanding his belief, could testify in a court of justice. In other words, honesty would be on an equality with hypocrisy. Science would stand on a level, so far as the law is concerned, with superstition. Whenever this happens the end of orthodox Christianity will be near.

By Christianity I do not mean charity, mercy, kindness, forgiveness. I mean no natural virtue, because all the natural virtues existed and had been practiced by hundreds and thousands of millions before Christ was born. There certainly were some good men even in the days of Christ in Jerusalem, before his death.

By Christianity I mean the ideas of redemption, atonement, a good man dying for a bad man, and the bad man getting a receipt in full. By Christianity I mean that system that insists that in the next world a few will be forever happy, while the many will be eternally miserable. Christianity, as I have explained it, must be protected, guarded, and sustained by law. It was founded by the sword that is to say, by physical force,—and must be preserved by like means.

In many of the States of the Union an infidel is not allowed to testify. In the State of Delaware, if Alexander von Humboldt were living, he could not be a witness, although he had more brains than the State of Delaware has ever produced, or is likely to produce as long as the laws of 1740 remain in force. Such men as Huxley, Tyndall and Haeckel could be fined and imprisoned in the State of Delaware, and, in fact, in many States of this Union.

Christianity, in order to defend itself, puts the brand of infamy on the brow of honesty. Christianity marks with a letter "C," standing for "convict" every brain that is great enough to discover the frauds. I have no doubt that Judge Comegys is a good and sincere Christian. I believe that he, in his charge, gives an exact reflection of the Jewish Jehovah. I believe that every word he said was in exact accord with the spirit of orthodox Christianity. Against this man personally I have nothing to say. I know nothing of his character except as I gather it from this charge, and after reading the charge I am forced simply to say, Judge Comegys is a Christian.

It seems, however, that the grand jury dared to take no action, notwithstanding they had been counseled to do so by the Judge. Although the Judge had quoted to them the words of George I. of blessed memory; although he had quoted to them the words of Lord Mansfield, who became a Judge simply because of his hatred of the English colonists, simply because he despised liberty in the new world; notwithstanding the fact that I could have been punished with insult, with imprisonment, and with stripes, and with every form of degradation; notwithstanding that only a few years ago I could have been branded upon the forehead, bored through the tongue, maimed and disfigured, still, such has been the advance even in the State of Delaware, owing, it may be, in great part to the one lecture delivered by me, that the grand jury absolutely refused to indict me.

The grand jury satisfied themselves and their consciences simply by making a report in which they declared that my lecture had "no parallel in the habits of respectable vagabondism" that I was "an arch-blasphemer and reviler of God and religion," and recommended that should I ever attempt to lecture again I should be taught that in Delaware blasphemy is a crime punishable by fine and imprisonment. I have no doubt that every member of the grand jury signing this report was entirely honest; that he acted in exact accord with what he understood to be the demand of the Christian religion. I must admit that for Christians, the report is exceedingly mild and gentle.

I have now in the house, letters that passed between certain bishops in the fifteenth century, in which they discussed the propriety of cutting out the tongues of heretics before they were burned. Some of the bishops were in favor of and some against it. One argument for cutting out their tongues which seemed to have settled the question was, that unless the tongues of heretics were cut out they might scandalize the gentlemen who were burning them, by blasphemous remarks during the fire. I would commend these letters to Judge Comegys and the members of the grand jury.

I want it distinctly understood that I have nothing against Judge Comegys or the grand jury. They act as 'most anybody would, raised in Delaware, in the shadow of the whipping-post and the pillory. We must remember that Delaware was a slave State; that the Bible became extremely dear to the people because it upheld that peculiar institution. We must remember that the Bible was the block on which mother and child stood for sale when they were separated by the Christians of Delaware. The Bible was regarded as the title-pages to slavery, and as the book of all books that gave the right to masters to whip mothers and to sell children.

There are many offences now for which the punishment is whipping and standing in the pillory; where persons are convicted of certain crimes and sent to the penitentiary, and upon being discharged from the penitentiary are furnished by the State with a dark jacket plainly marked on the back with a large Roman "C," the letter to be of a light color. This they are to wear for six months after being discharged, and if they are found at any time without the dark jacket and the illuminated "C" they are to be punished with twenty lashes upon the bare back. The object, I presume, of this law, is to drive from the State all the discharged convicts for the benefit of New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Maryland—that is to say, other Christian communities. A cruel people make cruel laws.

The objection I have to the whipping-post is that it is a punishment which cannot be inflicted by a gentleman. The person who administers the punishment must, of necessity, be fully as degraded as the person who receives it. I am opposed to any kind of punishment that cannot be administered by a gentleman. I am opposed to corporal punishment everywhere. It should be taken from the asylums and penitentiaries, and any man who would apply the lash to the naked back of another is beneath the contempt of honest people.

Question. Have you seen that Henry Bergh has introduced in the New York Legislature a bill providing for whipping as a punishment for wife-beating?

Answer. The objection I have mentioned is fatal to Mr. Bergh's bill. He will be able to get persons to beat wife-beaters, who, under the same circumstances, would be wife-beaters themselves. If they are not wife-beaters when they commence the business of beating others, they soon will be. I think that wife-beating in great cities could be stopped by putting all the wife-beaters at work at some government employment, the value of the work, however, to go to the wives and children. The trouble now is that most of the wife-beating is among the extremely poor, so that the wife by informing against her husband, takes the last crust out of her own mouth. If you substitute whipping or flogging for the prison here, you will in the first place prevent thousands of wives from informing, and in many cases, where the wife would inform, she would afterward be murdered by the flogged brute. This brute would naturally resort to the same means to reform his wife that the State had resorted to for the purpose of reforming him. Flogging would beget flogging. Mr. Bergh is a man of great kindness of heart. When he reads that a wife has been beaten, he says the husband deserves to be beaten himself. But if Mr. Bergh was to be the executioner, I imagine you could not prove by the back of the man that the punishment had been inflicted.

Another good remedy for wife-beating is the abolition of the Catholic Church. We should also do away with the idea that a marriage is a sacrament, and that there is any God who is rendered happy by seeing a husband and wife live together, although the husband gets most of his earthly enjoyment from whipping his wife. No woman should live with a man a moment after he has struck her. Just as the idea of liberty enlarges, confidence in the whip and fist, in the kick and blow, will diminish. Delaware occupies toward freethinkers precisely the same position that a wife-beater does toward the wife. Delaware knows that there are no reasons sufficient to uphold Christianity, consequently these reasons are supplemented with the pillory and the whipping-post. The whipping-post is considered one of God's arguments, and the pillory is a kind of moral suasion, the use of which fills heaven with a kind of holy and serene delight. I am opposed to the religion of brute force, but all these frightful things have grown principally out of a belief in eternal punishment and out of the further idea that a certain belief is necessary to avoid eternal pain.

If Christianity is right, Delaware is right. If God will damn every body forever simply for being intellectually honest, surely he ought to allow the good people of Delaware to imprison the same gentleman for two months. Of course there are thousands and thousands of good people in Delaware, people who have been in other States, people who have listened to Republican speeches, people who have read the works of scientists, who hold the laws of 1740 in utter abhorrence; people who pity Judge Comegys and who have a kind of sympathy for the grand jury.

You will see that at the last election Delaware lacked only six or seven hundred of being a civilized State, and probably in 1884 will stand redeemed and regenerated, with the laws of 1740 expunged from the statute book. Delaware has not had the best of opportunities. You must remember that it is next to New Jersey, which is quite an obstacle in the path of progress. It is just beyond Maryland, which is another obstacle. I heard the other day that God originally made oysters with legs, and afterward took them off, knowing that the people of Delaware would starve to death before they would run to catch anything. Judge Comegys is the last judge who will make such a charge in the United States. He has immortalized himself as the last mile-stone on that road. He is the last of his race. No more can be born. Outside of this he probably was a very clever man, and it may be, he does not believe a word he utters. The probability is that he has underestimated the intelligence of the people of Delaware. I am afraid to think that he is entirely honest, for fear that I may underestimate him intellectually, and overestimate him morally. Nothing could tempt me to do this man injustice, though I could hardly add to the injury he has done himself. He has called attention to laws that ought to be repealed, and to lectures that ought to be repeated. I feel in my heart that he has done me a great service, second only to that for which I am indebted to the grand jury. Had the Judge known me personally he probably would have said nothing. Should I have the misfortune to be arrested in his State and sentenced to two months of solitary confinement, the Judge having become acquainted with me during the trial, would probably insist on spending most of his time in my cell. At the end of the two months he would, I think, lay himself liable to the charge of blasphemy, providing he had honor enough to express his honest thought. After all, it is all a question of honesty. Every man is right. I cannot convince myself there is any God who will ever damn a man for having been honest. This gives me a certain hope for the Judge and the grand jury.

For two or three days I have been thinking what joy there must have been in heaven when Jehovah heard that Delaware was on his side, and remarked to the angels in the language of the late Adjt. Gen. Thomas: "The eyes of all Delaware are upon you."

A REPLY TO REV. DRS. THOMAS AND LORIMER.

Ladies and Gentlemen:

WHEREVER I lecture, as a rule, some ministers think it their duty to reply for the purpose of showing either that I am unfair, or that I am blasphemous, or that I laugh. And laughing has always been considered by theologians as a crime. Ministers have always said you will have no respect for our ideas unless you are solemn. Solemnity is a condition precedent to believing anything without evidence. And if you can only get a man solemn enough, awed enough, he will believe anything.

In this city the Rev. Dr. Thomas has made a few remarks, and I may say by way of preface that I have always held him in the highest esteem. He struggles, according to his statement, with the problem of my sincerity, and he about half concludes that I am not sincere. There is a little of the minister left in Dr. Thomas. Ministers always account for a difference of opinion by attacking the motive. Now, to him, it makes no difference whether I am sincere or insincere; the question is, Can my argument be answered? Suppose you could prove that the maker of the multiplication table held mathematics in contempt; what of it? Ten times ten would be a hundred still.

My sincerity has nothing to do with the force of the argument—not the slightest. But this gentleman begins to suspect that I am doing what I do for the sake of applause. What a commentary on the Christian religion, that, after they have been preaching it for sixteen or eighteen hundred years, a man attacks it for the sake of popularity—a man attacks it for the purpose of winning applause! When I commenced to speak upon this subject there was no appreciable applause; most of my fellow-citizens differed with me; and I was denounced as though I had been a wild beast. But I have lived to see the majority of the men and women of intellect in the United States on my side; I have lived to see the church deny her creed; I have lived to see ministers apologize in public for what they preached; and a great and glorious work is going on until, in a little while, you will not find one of them, unless it is some old petrifaction of the red-stone period, who will admit that he ever believed in the Trinity, in the Atonement, or in the doctrine of Eternal Agony. The religion preached in the pulpits does not satisfy the intellect of America, and if Dr. Thomas wishes to know why people go to hear infidelity it is this: Because they are not satisfied with the orthodox Christianity of the day. That is the reason. They are beginning to hold it in contempt.

But this gentleman imagines that I am insincere because I attacked certain doctrines of the Bible. I attacked the doctrine of eternal pain. I hold it in infinite and utter abhorrence. And if there be a God in this universe who made a hell; if there be a God in this universe who denies to any human being the right of reformation, then that God is not good, that God is not just, and the future of man is infinitely dark. I despise that doctrine, and I have done what little I could to get that horror from the cradle, that horror from the hearts of mothers, that horror from the hearts of husbands and fathers, and sons, and brothers, and sisters. It is a doctrine that turns to ashes all the humanities of life and all the hopes of mankind. I despise it.

And the gentleman also charges that I am wanting in reverence. I admit here to-day that I have no reverence for a falsehood. I do not care how old it is, and I do not care who told it, whether the men were inspired or not. I have no reverence for what I believe to be false, and in determining what is false I go by my reason. And whenever another man gives me an argument I examine it. If it is good I follow it. If it is bad I throw it away. I have no reverence for any book that upholds human slavery. I despise such a book. I have no reverence for any book that upholds or palliates the infamous institution of polygamy. I have no reverence for any book that tells a husband to kill his wife if she differs with him upon the subject of religion. I have no reverence for any book that defends wars of conquest and extermination. I have no reverence for a God that orders his legions to slay the old and helpless, and to whet the edge of the sword with the blood of mothers and babes. I have no reverence for such a book; neither have I any reverence for the author of that book. No matter whether he be God or man, I have no reverence. I have no reverence for the miracles of the Bible. I have no reverence for the story that God allowed bears to tear children in pieces. I have no reverence for the miraculous, but I have reverence for the truth, for justice, for charity, for humanity, for intellectual liberty, and for human progress.

I have the right to do my own thinking. I am going to do it. I have never met any minister that I thought had brain enough to think for himself and for me too. I do my own. I have no reverence for barbarism, no matter how ancient it may be, and no reverence for the savagery of the Old Testament; no reverence for the malice of the New. And let me tell you here to-night that the Old Testament is a thousand times better than the New. The Old Testament threatened no vengeance beyond the grave. God was satisfied when his enemy was? dead. It was reserved for the New Testament—it was reserved for universal benevolence—to rend the veil between time and eternity and fix the horrified gaze of man upon the abyss of hell. The New Testament is just as much worse than the Old, as hell is worse than sleep. And yet it is the fashion to say that the Old Testament is bad and that the New Testament is good. I have no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my reason; no reverence for any book that teaches a doctrine contrary to my heart; and, no matter how old it is, no matter how many have believed it, no matter how many have died on account of it, no matter how many live for it, I have no reverence for that book, and I am glad of it.

Dr. Thomas seems to think that I should approach these things with infinite care, that I should not attack slavery, or polygamy, or religious persecution, but that I should "mildly suggest"—mildly,—should not hurt anybody's feelings. When I go to church the ministers tell me I am going to hell. When I meet one I tell him, "There is no hell," and he says: "What do you want to hurt our feelings for?" He wishes me mildly to suggest that the sun and moon did not stop, that may be the bears only frightened the children, and that, after all, Lot's wife was only scared. Why, there was a minister in this city of Chicago who imagined that his congregation were progressive, and, in his pulpit, he said that he did not believe the story of Lot's wife—said that he did not think that any sensible man would believe that a woman was changed into salt; and they tried him, and the congregation thought he was entirely too fresh. And finally he went before that church and admitted that he was mistaken, and owned up to the chloride of sodium, and said: "I not only take the Bible cum grano salis, but with a whole barrelful."

My doctrine is, if you do not believe a thing, say so, say so; no need of going away around the bush and suggesting may be, perhaps, possibly, peradventure. That is the ministerial way, but I do not like it.

I am also charged with making an onslaught upon the good as well as the bad. I say here today that never in my life have I said one word against honesty, one word against liberty, one word against charity, one word against any institution that is good. I attack the bad, not the good, and I would like to have some minister point out in some lecture or speech that I have delivered, one word against the good, against the highest happiness of the human race.

I have said all I was able to say in favor of justice, in favor of liberty, in favor of home, in favor of wife and children, in favor of progress, and in favor of universal kindness; but not one word in favor of the bad, and I never expect to.

Dr. Thomas also attacks my statement that the brain thinks in spite of us.

Doesn't it? Can any man tell what he is going to think to-morrow? You see, you hear, you taste, you feel, you smell—these are the avenues by which Nature approaches the brain, the consequence of this is thought, and you cannot by any possibility help thinking.

Neither can you determine what you will think. These impressions are made independently of your will. "But," says this reverend doctor, "Whence comes this conception of space?" I can tell him. There is such a thing as matter. We conceive that matter occupies room—space—and, in our minds, space is simply the opposite of matter. And it comes naturally—not supernaturally.

Does the gentleman contend there had to be a revelation of God for us to conceive of a place where there is nothing? We know there is something. We can think of the opposite of something, and therefore we say space. "But," says this gentleman, "Where do we get the idea of good and bad?" I can tell him; no trouble about that. Every man has the capacity to enjoy and the capacity to suffer—every man. Whenever a man enjoys himself he calls that good; whenever he suffers he calls that bad. The animals that are useful to him he calls good; the poisonous, the hurtful, he calls bad. The vegetables that he can eat and use he calls good; those that are of no use except to choke the growth of the good ones, he calls bad. When the sun shines, when everything in nature is out that ministers to him, he says "this is good;" when the storm comes and blows down his hut, when the frost comes and lays down his crop, he says "this is bad." And all phenomena that affect men well he calls good; all that affect him ill he calls bad.

Now, then, the foundation of the idea of right and wrong is the effect in nature that we are capable of enjoying or capable of suffering. That is the foundation of conscience; and if man could not suffer, if man could not enjoy, we never would have dreamed of the word conscience; and the words right and wrong never could have passed human lips. There are no supernatural fields. We get our ideas from experience—some of them from our forefathers, many from experience. A man works—food does not come of itself. A man works to raise it, and, after he has worked in the sun and heat, do you think it is necessary that he should have a revelation from heaven before he thinks that he has a better right to it than the man who did not work? And yet, according to these gentlemen, we never would have known it was wrong to steal had not the Ten Commandments been given from Mount Sinai.

You go into a savage country where they never heard of the Bible, and let a man hunt all day for game, and finally get one little bird, and the hungry man that staid at home endeavor to take it from him, and you would see whether he would need a direct revelation from God in order to make up his mind who had the better right to that bird. Our ideas of right and wrong are born of our surroundings, and if a man will think for a moment he will see it. But they deny that the mind thinks in spite of us. I heard a story of a man who said, "No man can think of one thing a minute, he will think of something else." Well, there was a little Methodist preacher. He said he could think of a thing a minute—that he could say the Lord's Prayer and never think of another thing. "Well," said the man, "I'll tell you what I will do. There is the best road-horse in the country. I will give you that horse if you will just say the Lord's Prayer, and not think of another thing." And the little fellow shut up his eyes: "Our Father which art in Heaven, Hallowed be thy name. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done—I suppose you will throw in the saddle and bridle?"

I have always insisted, and I shall always insist, until I find some fact in Nature correcting the statement, that Nature sows the seeds of thought—that every brain is a kind of field where the seeds are sown, and that some are very poor, and some are very barren, and some are very rich. That is my opinion.

Again he asks: "If one is not responsible for his thought, why is any one blamed for thinking as he does?" It is not a question of blame, it is a question of who is right—a question of who is wrong. Admit that every one thinks exactly as he must, that does not show that his thought is right; that does not show that his thought is the highest thought. Admit that every piece of land in the world produces what it must; that does not prove that the land covered with barren rocks and a little moss is just as good as the land covered with wheat or corn; neither does it prove that the mind has to act as the wheat or the corn; neither does it prove that the land had any choice as to what it would produce. I hold men responsible not for their thoughts; I hold men responsible for their actions. And I have said a thousand times: Physical liberty is this—the right to do anything that does not interfere with another—in other words, to act right; and intellectual liberty is this—the right to think right, and the right to think wrong, provided you do your best to think right. I have always said it, and I expect to say it always.

The reverend gentleman is also afflicted with the gradual theory. I believe in that theory.

If you will leave out inspiration, if you will leave out the direct interference of an infinite God, the gradual theory is right. It is a theory of evolution.

I admit that astronomy has been born of astrology, that chemistry came from the black art; and I also contend that religion will be lost in science. I believe in evolution. I believe in the budding of the seed, the shining of the sun, the dropping of the rain; I believe in the spreading and the growing; and that is as true in every other department of the world as it is in vegetation. I believe it; but that does not account for the Bible doctrine. We are told we have a book absolutely inspired, and it will not do to say God gradually grows. If he is infinite now, he knows as much as he ever will. If he has been always infinite, he knew as much at the time he wrote the Bible as he knows to-day; and, consequently, whatever he said then must be as true now as it was then. You see they mix up now a little bit of philosophy with religion—a little bit of science with the shreds and patches of the supernatural.

Hear this: I said in my lecture the other day that all the clergymen in the world could not get one drop of rain out of the sky. I insist on it. All the prayers on earth cannot produce one drop of rain. I also said all the clergymen of the world could not save one human life. They tried it last year. They tried it in the United States. The Christian world upon its knees implored God to save one life, and the man died. The man died! Had the man recovered the whole church would have claimed that it was in answer to prayer. The man having died, what does the church say now? What is the answer to this? The Rev. Dr. Thomas says: "There is prayer and there is rain." Good. "Can he that is himself or any one else say there is no possible relation between one and the other?" I do. Let us put it another way. There is rain and there is infidelity; can any one say there is no possible relation between the two? How does Dr. Thomas know that he is not indebted to me for this year's crops? And yet this gentleman really throws out the idea that there is some possible relation between prayer and rain, between rain and health; and he tells us that he would have died twenty-five years ago had it not been for prayer. I doubt it. Prayer is not a medicine. Life depends upon certain facts—not upon prayer. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of the circulation of the blood. All the prayer in the world is no substitute for digestion. All the prayer in the world cannot take the place of food; and whenever a man lives by prayer you will find that he eats considerable besides. It will not do. Again: This reverend Doctor says: "Shall we say that all the love of the unseen world"—how does he know there is any love in the unseen world? "and the love of God"—how does he know there is any love in God? "heed not the cries and tears of earth?"

I do not know; but let the gentleman read the history of religious persecution. Let him read the history of those who were put in dungeons, of those who lifted their chained hands to God and mingled prayer with the clank of fetters; men that were in the dungeons simply for loving this God, simply for worshiping this God. And what did God do? Nothing. The chains remained upon the limbs of his worshipers. They remained in the dungeons built by theology, by malice, and hatred; and what did God do? Nothing. Thousands of men were taken from their homes, fagots were piled around their bodies; they were consumed to ashes, and what did God do? Nothing. The sword of extermination was unsheathed, hundreds and thousands of men, women and children perished. Women lifted their hands to God and implored him to protect their children, their daughters; and what did God do?

Nothing. Whole races were enslaved, and the cruel lash was put upon the naked back of toil. What did God do? Nothing. Children were sold from the arms of mothers. All the sweet humanities of life were trodden beneath the brutal foot of creed; and what did God do? Nothing. Human beings, his children, were tracked through swamps by bloodhounds; and what did God do? Nothing. Wild storms sweep over the earth and the shipwrecked go down in the billows; and what does God do? Nothing. There come plague and pestilence and famine. What does God do? Thousands and thousands perish. Little children die upon the withered breasts of mothers; and what does God do? Nothing.

What evidence has Dr. Thomas that the cries and tears of man have ever touched the heart of God? Let us be honest. I appeal to the history of the world; I appeal to the tears, and blood, and agony, and imprisonment, and death of hundreds and millions of the bravest and best. Have they ever touched the heart of the Infinite? Has the hand of help ever been reached from heaven? I do not know; but I do not believe it.

Dr. Thomas tells me that is orthodox Christianity. What right has he to tell what is orthodox Christianity? He is a heretic. He had too much brain to remain in the Methodist pulpit. He had a doubt—and a doubt is born of an idea. And his doctrine has been declared by his own church to be unorthodox. They have passed on his case and they have found him unconstitutional. What right has he to state what is orthodox? And here is what he says: "Christianity"—orthodox Christianity I suppose he means—"teaches, concerning the future world, that rewards and punishments are carried over from time to eternity; that the principles of the government of God are the same there as here; that character, and not profession determines destiny; and that Humboldt, and Dickens, and all others who have gone and shall go to that world shall receive their just rewards; that souls will always be in the place in which for the time, be it now or a million years hence, they are fitted. That is what Christianity teaches."

If it does, never will I have another word to say against Christianity. It never has taught it. Christianity—orthodox Christianity—teaches that when you draw your last breath you have lost the last opportunity for reformation. Christianity teaches that this little world is the eternal line between time and eternity, and if you do not get religion in this life, you will be eternally damned in the next. That is Christianity. They say: "Now is the accepted time." If you put it off until you die, that is too late; and the doctrine of the Christian world is that there is no opportunity for reformation in another world. The doctrine of orthodox Christianity is that you must believe on the Lord Jesus Christ here in this life, and it will not do to believe on him in the next world. You must believe on him here and that if you fail here, God in his infinite wisdom will never give you another chance. That is orthodox Christianity; and according to orthodox Christianity, the greatest, the best and the sublimest of the world are now in hell. And why is it that they say it is not orthodox Christianity? I have made them ashamed of their doctrine. When I called to their attention the fact that such men as Darwin, such men as Emerson, Dickens, Longfellow, Laplace, Shakespeare, and Humboldt, were in hell, it struck them all at once that the company in heaven would not be very interesting with such men left out.

And now they begin to say: "We think the Lord will give those men another chance." I have succeeded in my mission beyond my most sanguine expectations. I have made orthodox ministers deny their creeds; I have made them ashamed of their doctrine—and that is glory enough. They will let me in, a few years after I am dead. I admit that the doctrine that God will treat us as we treat others—I admit that is taught by Matthew, Mark, and Luke; but it is not taught by the Orthodox church. I want that understood. I admit also that Dr. Thomas is not orthodox, and that he was driven out of the church because he thought God too good to damn men forever without giving them the slightest chance. Why, the Catholic Church is a thousand times better than your Protestant Church upon that question. The Catholic Church believes in purgatory—that is, a place where a fellow can get a chance to make a motion for a new trial.

Dr. Thomas, all I ask of you is to tell all that you think. Tell your congregation whether you believe the Bible was written by divine inspiration. Have the courage and the grandeur to tell your people whether, in your judgment, God ever upheld slavery.

Do not shrink. Do not shirk. Tell your people whether God ever upheld polygamy. Do not shrink. Tell them whether God was ever in favor of religious persecution. Stand right to it. Then tell your people whether you honestly believe that a good man can suffer for a bad one and the bad one get the credit. Be honor bright. Tell what you really think and there will not be as much difference between you and myself as you imagine.

The next gentleman, I believe, is the Rev. Dr. Lorimer. He comes to the rescue, and I have an idea of his mental capacity from the fact that he is a Baptist. He believes that the infinite God has a choice as to the manner in which a man or babe shall be dampened. This gentleman regards modern infidelity as "pitifully shallow" as to its intellectual conceptions and as to its philosophical views of the universe and of the problems regarding man's place in it and of his destiny. "Pitifully shallow!"

What is the modern conception of the universe? The modern conception is that the universe always has been and forever will be. The modern conception of the universe is that it embraces within its infinite arms all matter, all spirit, all forms of force, all that is, all that has been, all that can be. That is the modern conception of this universe. And this is called "pitiful."

What is the Christian conception? It is that all the matter in the universe is dead, inert, and that back of it is a Jewish Jehovah who made it, and who is now engaged in managing the affairs of this world. And they even go so far as to say that that Being made experiments in which he signally failed. That Being made man and woman and put them in a garden and allowed them to become totally depraved. That Being of infinite wisdom made hundreds and millions of people when he knew he would have to drown them. That Being peopled a planet like this with men, women and children, knowing that he would have to consign most of them to eternal fire. That is a pitiful conception of the universe. That is an infamous conception of the universe. Give me rather the conception of Spinoza, the conception of Humboldt, of Darwin, of Huxley, of Tyndall and of every other man who has thought. I love to think of the whole universe together as one eternal fact. I love to think that everything is alive; that crystallization is itself a step toward joy. I love to think that when a bud bursts into blossom it feels a thrill. I love to have the universe full of feeling and full of joy, and not full of simple dead, inert matter, managed by an old bachelor for all eternity.

Another thing to which this gentleman objects is that I propose to banish such awful thoughts as the mystery of our origin and our relations to the present and to the possible future from human thought.

I have never said so. Never. I have said, One world at a time. Why? Do not make yourself miserable about another. Why? Because I do not know anything about it, and it may be good. So do not worry. That is all. Y or do not know where you are going to land. It may be the happy port of heaven. Wait until you get there. It will be time enough to make trouble then. This is what I have said. I have said that the golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. I do not know. I admit it. Life is a shadowy strange and winding road on which we travel for a few short steps, just a little way from the cradle with its lullaby of love, to the low and quiet wayside inn where all at last must sleep, and where the only salutation is "Good-Night!" Whether there is a good morning I do not know, but I am willing to wait.

Let us think these high and splendid thoughts. Let us build palaces for the future, but do not let us spend time making dungeons for men who happen to differ from us. I am willing to take the conceptions of Humboldt and Darwin, of Haeckel and Spinoza, and I am willing to compare their splendid conceptions with the doctrine embraced in the Baptist creed. This gentleman has his ideas upon a variety of questions, and he tells me that, "No one has a right to say that Dickens, Longfellow, and Darwin are castaways!" Why not? They were not Christians. They did not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ. They did not believe in the inspiration of the Scriptures. And, if orthodox religion be true, they are castaways. But he says: "No one has the right to say that orthodoxy condemns to perdition any man who has struggled toward the right, and who has tried to bless the earth he is raised on." That is what I say, but that is not what orthodoxy says. Orthodoxy says that the best man in the world, if he fails to believe in the existence of God, or in the divinity of Christ, will be eternally lost. Does it not say it? Is there an orthodox minister in this town now who will stand up and say that an honest atheist can be saved? He will not. Let any preacher say it, and he will be tried for heresy.

I will tell you what orthodoxy is. A man goes to the day of judgment, and they cross-examine him, and they say to him:

"Did you believe the Bible?"

"No."

"Did you belong to the church?"

"No."

"Did you take care of your wife and children?"

"Yes?"

"Pay your debts?"

"Yes."

"Love your country?"

"Yes."

"Love the whole world?"

"Yes."

"Never made anybody unhappy?"

"Not that I know of. If there is any man or woman that I ever wronged let them stand up and say so. That is the kind of man I am; but," said he, "I did not believe the Bible. I did not believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ, and, to tell you the truth, I did not believe in the existence of God. I now find I was mistaken; but that was my doctrine." Now, I want to know what, according to the orthodox church, is done with that man?

He is sent to hell.

That is their doctrine.

Then the next fellow comes. He says:

"Where did you come from?"

And he looks off kind of stiffly, with his head on one side and he says:

"I came from the gallows. I was just hung."

"What were you hung for?"

"Murdering my wife. She wasn't a Christian either, she got left. The day I was hung I was washed in the blood of the Lamb."

That is Christianity. And they say to him: "Come in! Let the band play!"

That is orthodox Christianity. Every man that is hanged—there is a minister there, and the minister tells him he is all right. All he has to do is just to believe on the Lord.

Another objection this gentleman has, and that is that I am scurrilous. Scurrilous! And the gentleman, in order to show that he is not scurrilous, calls infidels, "donkeys, serpents, buzzards." That is simply to show that he is not scurrilous.

Dr. Lorimer is also of the opinion that the mind thinks independently of the will; and I propose to prove by him that it does. He is the last man in the world to controvert that doctrine—the last man. In spite of himself his mind absorbed the sermon of another man, and he repeated it as his own. I am satisfied he is an honest man; consequently his mind acted independently of his will, and he furnishes the strongest evidence in favor of my position that it is possible to conceive. I am infinitely obliged to him for the testimony he has unconsciously offered.

He also takes the ground that infidelity debases a man and renders him unfit for the discharge of the highest duties pertaining to life, and that we show the greatest shallowness when we endeavor to overthrow Calvinism. What is Calvinism? It is the doctrine that an infinite God made millions of people, knowing that they would be damned. I have answered that a thousand times. I answer it again. No God has a right to make a mistake, and then damn the mistake. No God has a right to make a failure, and a man who is to be eternally damned is not a conspicuous success. No God has a right to make an investment that will not finally pay a dividend.

The world is getting better, and the ministers, all your life and all mine, have been crying out from the pulpit that we are all going wrong, that immorality was stalking through the land, that crime was about to engulf the world, and yet, in spite of all their prophecies, the world has steadily grown better, and there is more justice, more charity, more kindness, more goodness, and more liberty in the world to-day than ever before. And there is more infidelity in the world to-day than ever before.