Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll - Latest Part 7

That is nearly all that is said to a young one from the cradle until he is twenty one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying "Don't!" And the church says "Don't!" And the party that he belongs to says "Don't!" I despise that way of going through this world. Let us have a little liberty--just a little bit. There is another thing. In old times, you know, they thought some days were too good for a child to enjoy himself in. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too good to be happy in; and Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down Sat.u.r.day night. That was to get good ready--a kind of running jump; and when the sun went down, a darkness ten thousand times deeper than that of night fell on that house. n.o.body said a word then; n.o.body laughed; and the child that looked the sickest was regarded the most pious. You couldn't crack hickory nuts; you couldn't chew gum; and if you laughed, it was only another evidence of the total depravity of man. That was a solemn night; and the next morning everybody looked sad, mournful, dyspeptic--and thousands of people think they have religion when they have only got dyspepsia--thousands! But there is nothing in this world that would break up the old orthodox churches as quick as some specific for dyspepsia--some sure cure.

Then we went to church, and the minister was up in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a little sounding-board over him, and he commenced with Firstly and went on to about twenty-thirdly, and then around by way of application, and then divided it off again once or twice, and after having put in about two hours, he got to Revelations.

We were not allowed to have any fire, even if it was in the winter. It was thought to be outrageous to be comfortable while you are thanking the Lord, and the first church that ever had a stove put in it in New England was broken up on that account. Then we went a-nooning, and then came the catechism, the chief end of man. We went through that; and then this same sermon was preached, commencing at the other end, and going back. After that was over we started for home, solemn and sad--"not a soldier discharged his farewell shot;" not a word was said--and when we got home, if we had been good boys, they would take us up to the graveyard to cheer us up a little.

It did cheer me! When I looked at those tombs the comforting reflection came to my mind that this kind of thing couldn't last always. Then we had some certain books that we read just by way of cheerfulness. There was Milner's "History of the Wilderness," Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," and Jenkins' "On the Atonement." I used to read Jenkins' "On the Atonement;" and I have often thought the atonement would have to be very broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy to read.

Well, you know, the Sunday had to go at last; and the moment the sun went down Sunday night we were free. About 4 or 5 o'clock we would go to see how the sun was coming out. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was just stopping from pure cussedness; but finally it had to go down, and when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, out would come our traps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once more. In those times it was thought wrong for a child to laugh on Sunday. Think of that! A little child--a little boy--could go out in the garden, and there would be a tree laden with blossoms, and this little fellow would lean up against the tree, and there would be a bird singing and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its mate--singing and swinging, and the music coming rippling out of its throat, and the flowers blossoming and the air full of perfume, and the great white clouds floating in the sky; and that little boy would lean up against that trunk, and think of h.e.l.l.

That's true! I have heard them preach when I sat in the pew, and my feet didn't come within eighteen inches of the floor, about that h.e.l.l.

And they said, "Suppose that once in a million years a bird would come from some far distant planet, and carry in its bill a grain of sand, the time would finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be carried away;" and the old preacher said, in order to impress upon the boys the length of time they would have to stay, "it wouldn't be sun-up in h.e.l.l yet."

Think of that to preach to children! I tell you, my friends, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a little child will make it holier still--no day! And yet, at that time, the minds of children were polluted by this infamous doctrine of eternal punishment; and I denounce it today as an infamous doctrine beyond the power of language to express. Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for the children of men come from? It came from that wretch in the dug-out.

Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the animals, and the doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the eyes of snakes when they hung in fearful coils watching for their prey. It was a doctrine born of the howling and barking and growling of wild beasts; it was born in the grin of the hyenas, and of the depraved chatter of the baboons; and I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a G.o.d in the serene heaven that will d.a.m.n his children for the expression of an honest belief!

There have been more men who died in their sins, according to your orthodox religion, than there are leaves on all the forests of this world ten thousand times over. Tell me they are in h.e.l.l! Tell me they are to be punished for ever and ever! I denounce it as an infamous lie!

And when the great s.h.i.+p containing the hope and aspiration of the world, when the great s.h.i.+p freighted with mankind goes down in the night of death and disaster, I will go down with the s.h.i.+p. I don't want to paddle off in any orthodox canoe. I will go down with the s.h.i.+p; and if there is a G.o.d who will d.a.m.n his children forever I had rather go to h.e.l.l than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous Deity. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine, and I'll tell you why. It has covered the cheeks of this world with tears.

It has polluted the heart of children. It has been a pain and terror to every man that ever believed it. It has filled the good with horror and fear, but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. I tell you it is a bad doctrine. I read in the papers today what Henry Ward Beecher, whom I regard as the most intellectual preacher in the pulpit of the United States--I will read from the paper what he said yesterday, and you will see an abstract of it in the New York Times of today. He has had the courage, and he has had the magnificent manhood, to say:

"I say to you, and I swear to you, by the wounds in the hands of Christ--I swear to you by the wounds in the body and feet of Christ, that this doctrine of eternal h.e.l.l is a most infamous nightmare of theology! It never should be preached again."

What right have you, sir; you, minister, as you are, to stand at the portal of eternity, or the portal of the tomb, and fill the future with horror and with fear? You have no right to do it. I don't believe it, and neither do you. You would not sleep one night. Any man who believes it, who has got a decent heart in his bosom, will go insane.

Yes, sir, a man that really believes that doctrine and does not go insane, has got the conscience of a snake and the intellect of a hyena.

O! I thank my stars that you do not believe it. You cannot believe it, and you never will believe it. Old Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, he is in heaven I suppose, said: "Can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in h.e.l.l? Can the believing father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children in h.e.l.l? Can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving husband in h.e.l.l? I tell you yea. Such will be their sense of justice that it will increase rather than diminish their happiness."

Think of these infamous doctrines that have been taught in the name of religion! Do not stuff these things into the minds of your children.

Give them a chance. Let them read. Let them think. Do not treat your children like posts, to be set in the orthodox road, but like trees, that need light and sun and air. Be honest with them. Be fair with them. In old times they used to make all children go to bed when they were not sleepy, and all of them got up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed--when they are sleepy and get up when they are not.

But they say that will do for the rich, but not for the poor. Well, if the poor have to wake their children early in the morning, it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a club. I believe in letting children commence at which end of the dinner they want to.

Let them eat what they want. It is their business. They know what they want to eat. And if they have had their liberty from the first, they can beat any doctor in the world. All the improvement that has ever been made in medicine has been made by the recklessness of patients. Yes, sir. Thousands and thousands of years the doctors wouldn't let a man have water in fever. Every now and then some fellow got reckless and said: "I will die, I am so thirsty," and drank two or three quarts of water and got well. And they kept that up until finally the doctors said, "that is the best thing for a fever you can do."

I have more confidence to agree with nature about these things than any of the conclusions of the schools. Just let your children have freedom, and they will fall right into your ways and do just as you do.

But you try to make them, and there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that will not be driven. And do you know it is the luckiest thing for this world that ever happened that people are so.

What would we have been if the people in any age of the world had done just as the doctors told them? They would have been all dead. What would we have done if, at any age of the world, we had followed implicitly the direction of the church? We would have been all idiots, every one.

It is a splendid thing that there is always some fellow who won't mind, and will think for himself. And I believe in letting children think for themselves. I believe in having a family like a democracy. If there is anything splendid in this world it is a home of that kind.

They used to tell us, "Let your victuals close your mouth." We used to eat as though it was a religious performance. I like to see the children about, and every one telling what he has seen and heard. I like to hear the clatter of the knives and spoons mingling with the laughter of their voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that has ever been put upon the boards. Let them have liberty; let them have freedom, and I tell you your children will love you to death.

Now, I have some excuses to offer for the race to which I belong. I have two. My first excuse is that this is not a very good world to raise folks in anyway. It is not very well adapted to raising magnificent people. There's only a quarter of it land to start with.

It is three times better fitted for raising fish than folks, and in that one quarter of land there is not a tenth part fit to raise people on. You can't raise people without a good climate. You have got to have the right kind of climate, and you have got to have certain elements in the soil, or you can't raise good people. Do you know that there is only a little zig-zag strip around the world within which have been produced all men of genius?

The southern hemisphere has never produced a man of genius, never; and never will until civilization, fighting the heat that way and the cold this, widens this portion of the earth until it is capable of producing great men and great women. It is the same with men that it is with vegetation; you go into a garden, and find there flowers growing. And as you go up the mountain, the birch and the hemlock and the spruce are to be found. And as you go toward the top, you find little, stunted trees getting a miserable subsistence out of the crevices of the rocks, and you go on up and up and up, until finally you find at the top little moss-like freckles. You might as well try to raise flowers where those freckles grow as to raise great men and women where you haven't got the soil.

I don't believe man ever came to any high station without woman. There has got to be some restraint, something to make you prudent, something to make you industrious. And in a country where you don't need any bed quilt but a cloud, revolution is the normal condition of the people.

You have got to have the fireside; you have got to have the home, and there by the fireside will grow and bloom the fruits of the human race.

I recollect a while ago I was in Was.h.i.+ngton when they were trying to annex Santo Domingo. They said: "We want to take in Santo Domingo."

Said I: "We don't want it." "Why," said they, "it is the best climate the earth can produce. There is everything you want." "Yes,"

said I, "but it won't produce men. We don't want it. We have got soil enough now. Take 5,000 ministers from New England, 5,000 presidents of colleges, and 5,000 solid business men, and their families, and take them to Santo Domingo; and then you will see the effect of climate. The second generation, you will see barefooted boys riding bareback on a mule, with their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each arm, going to a c.o.c.k-fight on Sunday."

You have got to have the soil; you have got to have the climate, and you have got to have another thing--you have got to have the fireside.

That is one excuse I have for us.

The next excuse is that I think we came up from the lower animals.

Else how can you account for all this snake and hyena and jackal in man? Now, when I first heard that doctrine, I didn't like it. I felt sorry for people who had nothing but ancestors to be proud of. It touched my heart to think that they would have to go back to the Duke Orangutan or the d.u.c.h.ess Chimpanzee. I was sorry, and I hated to believe it. I don't know that it is the truth now. I am not satisfied upon that question; I stand about eight to seven. I thought it over.

I read about it. I read about these rudimentary bones and muscles. I didn't like that. I read that everybody had rudimentary muscles coming from the ear right down here (indicating); that the most intellectual people in the world have got them. I say, "What are they?"

"Rudimentary muscles." "What kind of muscles?" "Muscles that your ancestors used to have fully developed." "What for?" "To flap their ears with."

Well, whether we ever had them or not, I know of lots of men who ought to have them yet. And finally I said, "Well, I guess we came up from the lower animals." I thought it all over; the best I could, and I said, "I guess we did." And after a while I began to like it, and I like it better now than I did before.

Do you know that I would rather belong to a race that started with skull-less vertebrae in the dim Laurentian seas, wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing where they were going; but kept developing and getting a little further up and a little further up, all through the animal world, and finally striking this chap in the dug-out. A getting a little bigger, and this fellow calling that fellow a heretic, and that fellow calling the other an infidel, and so on. For in the history of the world, the man who has been ahead has always been called a heretic. Recollect this! I would rather come from a race that started from that skull-less vertebrae, and came up and up and up, and finally produced Shakespeare, who found the human intellect wallowing in a hut, and touched it with a wand of his genius, and it became a palace--dome and pinnacle. I would rather belong to a race that commenced then, and produced Shakespeare, with the eternal hope of an infinite future for the children of progress leading from the far horizon, beckoning men forward--forward and onward forever. I had rather belong to this race, and commence there, with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair on which the Lord has lost money every day since.

These are the excuses I have for my race.

Now, my friends, let me say another thing. I do not pretend to have floated even with the heights of thought; I do not pretend to have fathomed the abyss. All I pretend is to give simply my honest thought.

Every creed that we have today has upon it the mark of whip and chain and f.a.got. I do not want it. Free labor will give us wealth, and has given us wealth, and why? Because a free brain goes into partners.h.i.+p with a free hand. That is why. And when a man works for his wife and children, the problem of liberty is, how to do the most work in the shortest s.p.a.ce of time; but the problem of slavery is, how to do the least work in the longest s.p.a.ce of time. Slavery is poverty; liberty is wealth.

It is the same in thought. Free thought will give us truth; and the man who is not in favor of free thought occupies the same relation to those he can govern that the slaveholder occupied to his slaves, exactly. Free thought will give us wealth. There has not been a generation of free thought yet.

It will be time to write a creed when there have been a few generations of free-brained men and splendid women in this world. I don't know what the future may bring forth; I don't know what inventions are in the brain of the future; I don't know what garments may be woven, with the years to come; but I do know, coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch this "bank and shoal of time" a greater blessing, a grander glory, than liberty for man, woman and child.

Oh, liberty! Float not forever in the far horizon! Remain not forever in the dream of the enthusiast and the poet and the philanthropist!

But come and take up thine abode with the children of men forever!

Ingersoll's Lecture on "Orthodoxy"

Ladies and Gentlemen: It is utterly inconceivable that any man believing in the truth of the Christian religion could publicly deny it, because he who believes in that religion would believe that, by a public denial, he would peril the eternal salvation of his soul. It is conceivable, and without any great effort of the mind, that millions who don't believe in the Christian religion should openly say that they did. In a country where religion is supposed to be in power--where it has rewards for pretense, where it pays a premium upon hypocrisy, where it at least is willing to purchase silence--it is easily conceivable that millions pretend to believe what they do not. And yet I believe it has been charged against myself, not only that I was insincere, but that I took the side I am on for the sake of popularity; and the audience tonight goes far toward justifying the accusation.

It gives me immense pleasure to say to this immense audience that orthodox religion is dying out of the civilized world. It is a sick man. It has been attacked with two diseases--softening of the brain and ossification of the heart. It is a religion that no longer satisfies the intelligence of this county; a religion that no longer satisfies the brain; a religion against which the heart of every civilized man and woman protests. It is a religion that gives hope only to a few; a religion that puts a shadow upon the cradle; a religion that wraps the coffin in darkness and fills the future of mankind with flame and fear. It is a religion that I am going to do what little I can while I live to destroy; and in its place I want humanity, I want good-fellows.h.i.+p, I want a brain without a chain, I want a religion that every good heart will cheerfully applaud.

We must remember that this is a world of progress, a world of change.

There is perpetual death and there is perpetual birth. By the grave of the old forever stands youth and joy; and, when an old religion dies, a better one is born. When we find out that an a.s.sertion is a falsehood, a s.h.i.+ning truth takes its place, and we need not fear the destruction of the false. The more false we destroy the more room there will be for the true. There was a time when the astrologer sought to read in the stars the fate of men and nations. The astrologer has faded from the world, but the astronomer has taken his place. There was a time when the poor alchemist, bent and wrinkled and old, over his crucible, endeavored to find some secret by which he could change the baser metals into purest gold. The alchemist is gone; the chemist took his place; and, although he finds nothing to change metals into gold, he finds something that covers the earth with wealth. There was a time when the soothsayer and auger flourished, and after them came the parson and the priest; and the parson and priest must go. The preacher must go, and in his place must come the teacher--that real interpreter of nature. We are done with the supernatural. We are through with the miraculous and the wonderful. There was once a prophet who pretended to read in the book of the future. His place was taken by the philosopher, who reasons from cause to effect--a man who finds the facts by which he is surrounded and endeavors to reason from these premises, and to tell what in all probability will happen in the future. The prophet is gone, the philosopher is here. There was a time when man sought aid entirely from heaven--when he prayed to the deaf sky. There was a time when the world depended upon the supernaturalist. That time in Christendom has pa.s.sed. We now depend upon the naturalist--not upon the disciple of faith, but upon the discoverer of facts--upon the demonstrator of truth. At last we are beginning to build upon a solid foundation, and just as we progress the supernatural must die.

Religion of the supernatural kind will fade from this world, and in its place we will have reason. In the place of the wors.h.i.+p of something we know not of, will be the religion of mutual love and a.s.sistance--the great religion of reciprocity. Superst.i.tion must go. Science will remain. The church, however, dies a little hard. The brain of the world is not yet developed. There are intellectual diseases the same as diseases of the body. Intellectual mumps and measles still afflict mankind. Whenever the new comes, the old protests, and the old fights for its place as long as it has a particle of power. And we are now having the same warfare between superst.i.tion and science that there was between the stagecoach and the locomotive. But the stage-coach had to go. It had its day of glory and power, but it is gone. It went West.

In a little while it will be driven into the Pacific, with the last Indian aboard. So we find that there is the same conflict between the different sects and the different schools, not only of philosophy, but of medicine. Recollect that everything except the demonstrated truth is liable to die. That is the order of nature. Words die. Every language has a cemetery. Every now and then a word dies and a tombstone is erected, and across it is written the word "obsolete."

New words are continually being born. There is a cradle in which a word is rocked. A thought is molded to a sound, and the child-word is born. And then comes a time when the word gets old, and wrinkled, and expressionless, and is carried mournfully to the grave, and that is the end of it. So in the schools of medicine. You can remember, so can I, when the old alopathists reigned supreme. If there was anything the matter with a man, they let out his blood. Called to the bedside, they took him to the edge of eternity with medicine, and then practiced all their art to bring him back to life. One can hardly imagine how perfect a const.i.tution it took a few years ago to stand the a.s.sault of a doctor. And long after it was found to be a mistake, hundreds and thousands of the old physicians clung to it, carried around with them, in one pocket, a bottle of jalap, and in the other a rusty lancet, sorry that they couldn't find some patient idiotic enough to allow the experiment to be made again.

So these schools, and these theories, and these religions die hard.

What else can they do? Like the paintings of the old masters, they are kept alive because so much money has been invested in them. Think of the amount of money that has been invested in superst.i.tion! Think of the schools that have been founded for the more general diffusion of useless knowledge! Think of the colleges wherein men are taught that it is dangerous to think, and that they must never use their brains except in an act of faith! Think of the millions and billions of dollars that have been expended in churches, in temples and in cathedrals! Think of the thousands and thousands of men who depend for their living upon the ignorance of mankind! Think of those who grow rich on credulity and who fatten on faith! Do you suppose they are going to die without a struggle? They will die if they don't struggle. What are they to do?

From the bottom of my heart I sympathize with the poor clergyman that has had all his common sense educated out of him, and is now to be thrown out upon the cold and uncharitable world. His prayers are not answered; he gets no help from on high, and the pews are beginning to criticize the pulpit. What is the man to do? If he suddenly change, he is gone. If he preaches what he really believes, he will get notice to quit. And yet if he and the congregation would come together and be perfectly honest, they would all admit they didn't believe anything of it.

Only a little while ago a couple of ladies were riding together from a revival in a carriage late at night, and one said to the other; as they rode along: "I am going to say something that will shock you, and I beg of you never to tell it to anybody else. I am going to tell it to you." "Well, What is it?" Says she: "I don't believe in the bible."

The other replied: "Neither do I." I have often thought how splendid it would be if the ministers could but come together and say: "Now let us be honest. Let us tell each other, honor bright--like Dr. Currie did in the meeting here the other day--let us tell just what we believe." They tell a story that in the old time a lot of people, about twenty, were in Texas in a little hotel, and one fellow got up before the fire, put his hands behind him, and says he: "Boys, let us all tell our real names." If the ministers and the congregations would only tell their real thoughts they would find that they are nearly as bad as I am, and that they believe just about as little.

Now, I have been talking a great deal about the orthodox religion; and, after having delivered a lecture, I would meet some good, religious person, and he would say to me: "You don't tell it as we believe it."