The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XI Part 41

The sources of justice were poisoned, and patriotism became the defender of piracy. In the name of humanity mothers were robbed of their babes.

Thirty years ago to-day a shot was fired, and in a moment all the promises, all the laws, all the const.i.tutional amendments, and all the idiotic and heartless decisions of courts, and all the speeches of orators inspired by the hope of place and power, were blown into rags and ravelings, pieces and patches.

The North and South had been masquerading as friends, and in a moment, while the sound of that shot was ringing in their ears, they faced each other as enemies.

The roar of that cannon announced the birth of a new epoch. The echoes of that shot went out, not only over the bay of Charleston, but over the hills, the prairies and forests of the continent.

These echoes said marvelous things and uttered prophecies that none were wise enough to understand.

Who at that time had the slightest conception of the immediate future?

Who then was great enough to see the end? Who then was wise enough to know that the echoes would be kept alive and repeated for years by thousands and thousands of cannon, by millions of muskets, on the fields of ruthless war?

At that time Abraham Lincoln, an Illinois lawyer, was barely a month in the President's chair, and that shot made him the most commanding and majestic figure of the nineteenth century--a figure that stands alone.

Who could have guessed the names of the heroes to be repeated by countless lips before the echoes of that shot should have died away?

There was at that time a young man at Galena, silent, un.o.btrusive, unknown; and yet, the moment that shot was fired he was destined to lead the greatest host ever marshaled on a field of war, destined to receive the final sword of the Rebellion.

There was another, in the Southwest, who heard one of the echoes of that shot, and who afterward marched from Atlanta to the sea; and another, far away by the Pacific, who also heard one of the echoes, and who became one of the immortal three.

But, above all, the echoes were heard by millions of men and women in the fields of unpaid toil, and they knew not the meaning, but felt that they had heard a prophecy of freedom. And the echoes told of death and glory for many thousands--of the agonies of women--the sobs of orphans--the sighs of the imprisoned, and the glad shouts of the delivered, the enfranchised, the redeemed.

They who fired that gun did not dream that they were giving liberty to millions of people, including themselves, white as well as black, North as well as South, and that before the echoes should die away, all the shackles would be broken, all the const.i.tutions and statutes of slavery repealed, and all the compromises merged and lost in a great compact made to preserve the liberties of all.

WHAT INFIDELS HAVE DONE.

ONE HUNDRED years after Christ had died suppose some one had asked a Christian, What hospitals have you built? What asylums have you founded?

They would have said "None." Suppose three hundred years after the death of Christ the same questions had been asked the Christian, he would have said "None, not one." Two hundred years more and the answer would have been the same. And at that time the Christian could have told the questioner that the Mohammedans had built asylums before the Christians.

He could also have told him that there had been orphan asylums in China for hundreds and hundreds of years, hospitals in India, and hospitals for the sick at Athens.

Here it may be well enough to say that all hospitals and asylums are not built for charity. They are built because people do not want to be annoyed by the sick and the insane. If a sick man should come down the street and sit upon your doorstep, what would you do with him? You would have to take him into your house or leave him to suffer. Private families do not wish to take the burden of the sick. Consequently, in self-defence, hospitals are built so that any wanderer coming to a house, dying, or suffering from any disease, may immediately be packed off to a hospital and not become a burden upon private charity. The fact that many diseases are contagious rendered hospitals necessary for the preservation of the lives of the citizens. The same thing is true of the asylums. People do not, as a rule, want to take into their families, all the children who happen to have no fathers and mothers. So they endow and build an asylum where those children can be sent--and where they can be whipped according to law. n.o.body wants an insane stranger in his house. The consequence is, that the community, to get rid of these people, to get rid of the trouble, build public inst.i.tutions and send them there.

Now, then, to come to the point, to answer the interrogatory often flung at us from the pulpit, What inst.i.tutions have Infidels built? In the first place, there have not been many Infidels for many years and, as a rule, a known Infidel cannot get very rich, for the reason that the Christians are so forgiving and loving they boycott him. If the average Infidel, freely stating his opinion, could get through the world himself, for the last several hundred years, he has been in good luck.

But as a matter of fact there have been some Infidels who have done some good, even from a Christian standpoint. The greatest charity ever established in the United States by a man--not by a community to get rid of a nuisance, but by a man who wished to do good and wished that good to last after his death--is the Girard College in the city of Philadelphia. Girard was an Infidel. He gained his first publicity by going like a common person into the hospitals and taking care of those suffering from contagious diseases--from cholera and smallpox. So there is a man by the name of James Lick, an Infidel, who has given the finest observatory ever given to the world. And it is a good thing for an Infidel to increase the sight of men. The reason people are theologians is because they cannot see. Mr. Lick has increased human vision, and I can say right here that nothing has been seen through the telescope, calculated to prove the astronomy of Joshua. Neither can you see with that telescope a star that bears a Christian name. The reason is that Christianity was opposed to astronomy. So astronomers took their revenge, and now there is not one star that glitters in all the vast firmament of the boundless heavens that has a Christian name. Mr.

Carnegie has been what they call a public-spirited man. He has given millions of dollars for libraries and other inst.i.tutions, and he certainly is not an orthodox Christian.

Infidels, however, have done much better even than that. They have increased the sum of human knowledge. John W. Draper, in his work on "The Intellectual Development of Europe," has done more good to the American people and to the civilized world than all the priests in it.

He was an Infidel. Buckle is another who has added to the sum of human knowledge. Thomas Paine, an Infidel, did more for this country than any other man who ever lived in it.

Most of the colleges in this country have, I admit, been founded by Christians, and the money for their support has been donated by Christians, but most of the colleges of this country have simply cla.s.sified ignorance, and I think the United States would be more learned than it is to-day if there never had been a Christian college in it. But whether Christians gave or Infidels gave has nothing to do with the probability of the Jonah story or with the probability that the mark on the dial went back ten degrees to prove that a little Jewish king was not going to die of a boil. And if the Infidels are all stingy and the Christians are all generous it does not even tend to prove that three men were in a fiery furnace heated seven times hotter than was its wont without even scorching their clothes.

The best college in this country--or, at least, for a long time the best--was the inst.i.tution founded by Ezra Cornell. That is a school where people try to teach what they know instead of what they guess. Yet Cornell University was attacked by every orthodox college in the United States at the time it was founded, because they said it was without religion.

Everybody knows that Christianity does not tend to generosity.

Christianity says: "Save your own soul, whether anybody else saves his or not." Christianity says: "Let the great s.h.i.+p go down. You get into the little life-boat of the gospel and paddle ash.o.r.e, no matter what becomes of the rest." Christianity says you must love G.o.d, or something in the sky, better than you love your wife and children. And the Christian, even when giving, expects to get a very large compound interest in another world. The Infidel who gives, asks no return except the joy that comes from relieving the wants of another.

Again the Christians, although they have built colleges, have built them for the purpose of spreading their superst.i.tions, and have poisoned the minds of the world, while the Infidel teachers have filled the world with light. Darwin did more for mankind than if he had built a thousand hospitals. Voltaire did more than if he had built a thousand asylums for the insane. He will prevent thousands from going insane that otherwise might be driven into insanity by the "glad tidings of great joy."

Haeckel is filling the world with light.

I am perfectly willing that the results of the labors of Christians and the labors of Infidels should be compared. Then let it be understood that Infidels have been in this world but a very short time. A few years ago there were hardly any. I can remember when I was the only Infidel in the town where I lived. Give us time and we will build colleges in which something will be taught that is of use. We hope to build temples that will be dedicated to reason and common sense, and where every effort will be made to reform mankind and make them better and better in this world.

I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing against any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. They may talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane by their teachings. Orthodox religion has opposed liberty. It has opposed investigation and free thought. If all the churches in Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied, if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been far, far beyond what it is to-day.

There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity is negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is negative. What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion; that Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and Infidelity admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions of the reason. Infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the heart of man. That is positive. Religion asks man to give up this world for one he knows nothing about. That is negative. I stand by the religion of reason. I stand by the dogmas of demonstration.

CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.

IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, n.o.bler, by being whipped or clubbed.

Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He belongs to the Dark Ages--to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber, and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To put any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a believer in cruelty--an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh to satisfy his conscience--his sense of duty. He wields the club himself because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.

When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society far worse than when he entered the prison.

Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man--some man with brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.

I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating the flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has been a failure.

Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and degrade society and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy, soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.

Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were regarded as weak and sentimental.

At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who had brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of the Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the repeal of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light on the recent poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize through their hides the fact that the State has laws to which the individual must be obedient."

This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect accord with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the conditions and to reform the criminals.

LAW'S DELAY.

THE object of a trial is not to convict--neither is it to acquit. The object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance with law.

In this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable doubts. We insist that his guilt shall be really established by competent testimony.

We also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have these exceptions pa.s.sed upon by a higher court.

We also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict.

Some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. They say that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is wasted because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a strict compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for years, and that in many instances the guilty escape.