INGERSOLLIA
By Robert G. Ingersoll
GEMS OF THOUGHT FROM THE LECTURES, SPEECHES, AND CONVERSATIONS OF COL ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, REPRESENTATIVE OF HIS OPINIONS AND BELIEFS
Edited By Elmo
1882.
CONTENTS
[ 2. The Happy Life of the Farm ]
[ 3. The Ambitious Farmer's Boy ]
[ 4. Never Be Afraid of Work! ]
[ 5. Happiness the Object of Life ]
[ 6. The Sunset of the Farmer's Life ]
[ 7. Farmers, Protect Yourselves! ]
[ 8. Roast the Beef, Not the Cook. ]
[ 10. The Wages of Slovenly Farming. ]
[ 11. The Farmer's Happy Winter ]
[ 15. What to do with the Idlers ]
[ 17. The Best Farming States ]
[ 18. The Laborers, the Kings and Queens ]
[ 19. The Family the Only Heaven in this World ]
[ 20. The Far-Seeing Eyes of Children. ]
[ 21. Love and Freedom in a Cabin ]
[ 22. The Turnpike Road of Happiness ]
[ 23. Love Paying Ten Per Cent ]
[ 24. A Word to the Cross-Grained ]
[ 25. Oh! Daughters and Wives be Beautiful ]
[ 26. A Wholesome Word to the Stingy ]
[ 27. The Boss of the Family ]
[ 29. The Opera at the Table ]
[ 30. A Child's laugh sweeter than Apollo's lyre ]
[ 31. Don't Wake the Children ]
[ 32. How to Deal with Children ]
[ 34. The Greatest Liars in Michigan ]
[ 36. A Solemn Satire on Whipping Children ]
[ 37. The Whips and Gods are Gone! ]
[ 38. Absolute Independence of the Individual ]
[ 42. I Want to Put Out the Fires of Hell ]
[ 44. A Star in the Sky of Despair ]
[ 45. Do not Shock the Heathen! ]
[ 46. I will Settle with God Myself ]
[ 47. I Claim my Right to Guess ]
[ 50. Every Man a Bight to Think ]
[ 51. Too Early to Write a Creed ]
[ 52. Every Mind True to Itself ]
[ 53. The Torch of Progress. ]
[ 54. Gold makes a Barren Landscape ]
[ 56. The Divorce of Church and State ]
[ 60. The Temple of the Future ]
[ 62. The Eighteenth Century ]
[ 63. Liberty—Fraternity—Equality! ]
[ 65. Ingersoll Not a Politician ]
[ 68. Church and School Divorced ]
[ 69. Laws That Want Repealing ]
[ 72. Candidates Made Hypocrites ]
[ 73. The Church and the Throne ]
[ 75. Liberty for Politicians ]
[ 76. Tax all Church Property ]
[ 78. The Best Blood of the Old Word come to the New ]
[ 80. The Enthusiasts of 1776 ]
[ 81. The Church Must Have no Sword ]
[ 82. We are All of Us Kings! I want the power where some one can use ]
[ 87. Years Without Seeing a Dollar! ]
[ 88. The Wail of Dead Nations ]
[ 89. What the Republican Party Did ]
[ 91. Photograph of a Democrat. ]
[ 92. I am a Republican, I Tell You! ]
[ 94. Give Every Man a Chance ]
[ 95. Who Shall Rule the Country? ]
[ 96. The Declaration of Independence ]
[ 97. The World Grows Brighter. ]
[ 100. We are a Great People ]
[ 103. The Republican Platform. ]
[ 104. Our Government the best on Earth ]
[ 105. Will the Second Century of America be as good as the First? ]
[ 106. The Glory of Science. ]
[ 108. Science Better than a Creed ]
[ 109. The Religion of Science ]
[ 110. Science not Sectarian ]
[ 111. The Epitaph of all Religions ]
[ 115. Science Opening the Gates of Thought ]
[ 116. Stars and Grains of Sand ]
[ 117. The Trinity of Science ]
[ 118. The Old and the New Old ideas perished in the retort of the ]
[ 119. The Triumphs of Science ]
[ 121. Science the only Lever ]
[ 122. The Colonel Short of Words!!! ]
[ 123. Slavery in the Name of Religion ]
[ 124. The Patrons of Slavery ]
[ 125. A Colored Man in Congress ]
[ 127. Black People have Suffered Enough ]
[ 128. The History of Civilization ]
[ 129. Does God Uphold Slavery? ]
[ 131. The Soldiers of the Republic ]
[ 133. What Were We Fighting For? ]
[ 134. The Revolution Consummated ]
[ 135. Fighting Done!—Work Begun! ]
[ 136. Manhood worth more than Gold ]
[ 137. Grander than Greek or Roman. ]
[ 138. Let us Drink to the Living and the Dead ]
[ 139. Will the Wounds of the War be Healed? ]
[ 140. Saviours of the Nation ]
[ 143. The Debt will be paid ]
[ 145. A Voter because a Man ]
[ 146. Keep the Flag in Heaven! ]
[ 147. Prosperity and Resumption hand in hand ]
[ 148. Every Poor Man should Stand by the Government ]
[ 150. A Government with a Long Arm ]
[ 155. The South and the Tariff ]
[ 157. The Old Woman of Tewksbury ]
[ 158. American Muscle, Coined into Gold ]
[ 160. Resources of Illinois. ]
[ 164. America a Glorious Land ]
[ 165. How to Spend a Dollar ]
[ 166. Honesty is Best always and Everywhere ]
[ 167. A Fountain of Greenbacks ]
[ 168. What the Greenback says! ]
[ 170. Silver demonetized by Fraud! ]
[ 172. Faith—A Mixture of Insanity and Ignorance ]
[ 173. What the Saints Could Cure! ]
[ 174. The Sleep of Persecutors ]
[ 175. Crime Rampant and God Silent! ]
[ 176. How Criminals Die Serenely! ]
[ 177. The first Corpse and the first Cathedral ]
[ 178. The Sixteenth Century ]
[ 179. An Orthodox Gentleman ]
[ 181. History a Bloody Farce! ]
[ 182. Weak ones Suffering—Heaven deaf ]
[ 183. Heaven has no Ear, no Hand ]
[ 184. Religion is Tyrannical ]
[ 186. Religion not the End of Life ]
[ 188. The Worst Religion in the World ]
[ 189. Religion Demanding Miracles ]
[ 195. The Church Forbids Investigation ]
[ 196. The Church Charges Falsely ]
[ 197. The Church in the "Dark Ages" ]
[ 198. The Few Say, "Think!" ]
[ 199. The Church and the Tree of Knowledge ]
[ 200. The Church Cries, "Believe!" ]
[ 201. The Heretics Cried, "Halt!" ]
[ 202. The World not so Awful Flat ]
[ 203. From Whence Come Wars? ]
[ 204. Another Day of Divine Work ]
[ 205. The Donkey and the Lion ]
[ 206. The Orthodox Christian ]
[ 208. The Church the Great Robber ]
[ 211. Shakespeare's Plays v. Sermons ]
[ 212. Why Should the Church be Merciful? ]
[ 213. The Church and the Infidel. ]
[ 215. Infinite Impudence of the Church ]
[ 218. The Church Looks Back ]
[ 223. Freedom for the Clergy ]
[ 225. Origin of the Priesthood ]
[ 227. The Parson, the Crane and the Fish ]
[ 228. Banish Me from Eden—But! ]
[ 229. The Pulpit's Cry of Fear ]
[ 231. The Parson Factory at Andover ]
[ 232. A Charge to Presbyteries ]
[ 233. Nature the True Bible ]
[ 236. I Don't Believe the Bible ]
[ 237. The Bible the Real Persecutor ]
[ 238. Immoralities of the Bible ]
[ 239. The Bible Stands in the Way ]
[ 243. Damned for Laughing at Samson ]
[ 244. The Man, Not the Book, Inspired ]
[ 246. Absurd and Foolish Fables ]
[ 247. The Bible the Work of Man ]
[ 248. Something to Admire, not Laugh at ]
[ 249. An Intellectual Deformity ]
[ 250. The Bible a Poor Product ]
[ 251. The Bible the Battle Ground of Sects ]
[ 253. Where Moses got the Pentateuch ]
[ 254. God's Letter to His Children ]
[ 256. Read the Bible—and Then! ]
[ 257. An Infallible Book Makes Slaves ]
[ 258. Can a Sane Man Believe in Inspiration? ]
[ 261. The Bad Passages in the Bible not Inspired ]
[ 263. One Plow worth a Million Sermons ]
[ 265. The Legitimate Influence of Religion ]
[ 266. Infidels the Flowers of the World ]
[ 267. The Noblest Sons of, Earth ]
[ 268. How Ingersoll became an Infidel ]
[ 269. Why Should Infidels Die in Fear? ]
[ 270. Infidelity is Liberty ]
[ 271. The World in Debt to Infidels ]
[ 272. Infidels the Pioneers of Progress ]
[ 273. Infidels the Great Discoverers ]
[ 275. Every Nation has Created a God ]
[ 277. Creation the Decomposition of the Infinite ]
[ 278. The Gods Are as the People Are ]
[ 279. Gods Shouldn't Make Mistakes ]
[ 281. Plenty of Gods on Hand ]
[ 283. Was the Devil an Idiot? ]
[ 286. Fancy a Devil Drowning a World ]
[ 287. Some Gods Very Particular About Little Things ]
[ 288 The Gods of To-day the Scorn of To-morrow ]
[ 289. No Evidence of a God in Nature ]
[ 290. Great Variety in Gods ]
[ 292. Give the Devil His Due ]
[ 294. On the Horns of a Dilemma ]
[ 295. The Devil and the Swine ]
[ 296. How can I assist God? ]
[ 299. The Devils better than the Gods ]
[ 302. Hope of a Future Life ]
[ 304. What if Death Does End All? ]
[ 305. The Old World Ignorant of Destiny ]
[ 306. Where the Doctrine of Hell was born ]
[ 307. The Grand Companionships of Hell ]
[ 309. The Drama of Damnation ]
[ 310. Annihilation rather than be a God ]
[ 311. "All that have Red Hair shall be Damned." ]
[ 312. The Conscience of a Hyena ]
[ 316. The Emperor Constantine. ]
[ 317. Did Franklin and Jefferson Die in Fear? ]
[ 318. Angels at Constantino's Dying Bed! ]
[ 322. The Greatest of all Political Writers ]
[ 323. The Writings of Paine ]
[ 324. The Last Words of Paine. ]
[ 325. Paine Believed in God ]
[ 326. The Intellectual Hera ]
[ 327. Paine, Franklin, Jefferson ]
[ 331. Calvin's Five Fetters ]
[ 334. Humboldt's Illustrious Companions ]
[ 335. Humboldt the Apostle of Science ]
[ 336. Ingersoll Muses by Napoleon's Tomb ]
[ 337. Eulogy on J. G. Blaine ]
[ 348. Professor Swing, a Dove amongst Vultures ]
[ 349. Queen Victoria and George Eliot ]
[ 352. "Wealthy in Integrity; In Brain a Millionaire." ]
[ 353. Garfield a Certificate of the Splendor of the American Constitution ]
[ 356. The Aristocracy that will Survive. ]
[ 357. Truth will Bear the Test ]
[ 360. The People are Beginning to Think ]
[ 362. Man the Victor of the Future ]
[ 364. Make the Sabbath Merry ]
[ 365. Away to the Hills and the Sea ]
[ 367. Moses took Egyptian Law for his Model ]
[ 368. A False Standard of Success ]
[ 370. The Sad Wilderness History ]
[ 371. Law Much Older than Sinai ]
[ 372. Who is the Blasphemer? ]
[ 375. Haeckel before Moses! ]
[ 378. Early Rising is Barbaric! ]
[ 380. Never Rise at Four O'Clock ]
[ 384. The One Window in the Ark ]
[ 385. No Ante-Diluvian Camp-Meetings! ]
[ 387. What did Moses know about the Sun? ]
[ 388. Something for Nothing ]
[ 390. The Colonel in the Kitchen—How to Cook a Beefsteak ]
[ 393. Scathing Impeachment of Intemperance ]
[ 396. Ingersoll Prefers Shoemakers to Princes ]
[ 399. Who is the True Nobleman? ]
[ 400. Wanted!—More Manliness ]
[ 402. The Worker Wearing the Purple ]
[ 404. Be Happy—Here and Now! ]
[ 405. The School House a Fort ]
[ 408. The Gospel of Cheerfulness ]
[ 409. The Gospel of Liberty ]
[ 410. The Gospel of 'Good Living ]
[ 411. The Gospel of Intelligence ]
[ 412. The Gospel of Justice ]
[ GEMS FROM THE CONTROVERSIAL GASKET ]
[ 413. The Origin of the Controversy ]
[ 414. What is Christianity? ]
[ 415. Summary of Evangelical Belief ]
[ 416. A Profound Change in the World of Thought ]
[ 417. The Believer in the Inspiration of the Bible has too Much to Believe ]
[ 419. The Bible Should be Better than any other Book ]
[ 421. If the Bible is Not Verbally Inspired, What Then? ]
[ 423. A Test Fairly Applied ]
[ 425. Proofs of Civilization ]
[ 427. Man the Author of all Books ]
[ 429. Matthew, Mark, and Luke ]
[ 430. Christianity Takes no Step in Advance ]
[ 431. Christianity a Mixture of Good and Evil ]
[ 432. Jehovah, Epictetus and Cicero ]
[ 435. The Logic of the Coffin ]
[ 437. The Standard of Right ]
[ 440. The Liberty of the Bible ]
[ 442. Jehovah Breaking His Own Laws ]
[ 443. Who Designed the Designer? ]
[ 444. What we Know of the Infinite ]
[ 445. The Universe Self-Existent ]
[ 446. Jehovah's Promise Broken ]
[ 447. Character Bather than Creed ]
[ 448. Mohammed the Prophet of God ]
[ 449. Wanted!—A Little More Legislation ]
[ 450. Is all that Succeeds Inspired? ]
[ 451. The Morality in Christianity ]
[ 453. The Honor Due to Christ ]
[ 454. Christianity has no Monopoly in Morals ]
[ 455. Old Age in Superstition's Lap ]
[ 457. How Gods and Devils are Made ]
[ 458. The Romance of Figures ]
[ 460. Why was Christ so Silent? ]
[ 461. The Philosophy of Action ]
[ 462. Infinite Punishment for Finite Crimes. ]
[ 463. Whence Came the Gospels? ]
[ 464. Mr. Black's Admission ]
[ 465. The Stars Upon the Door of France ]
[ A KIND WORD FOR JOHN CHINAMAN ]
[ 466. The Select Committee Afraid ]
[ 467. The Gods of the Joss-House and Patmos ]
[ 469. Christianity has a Fair Show in San Francisco ]
[ 470. An Arrow from the Quiver of Satire ]
[ 471. We Have no Religious System ]
[ 472. Congress Nothing to Do with Religion ]
[ 473. Concessions of the Illustrious Four! ]
[ 474. Do not Trample on John Chinaman ]
[ 475. Be Honest with the Chinese ]
[ 476. An Honest Merchant the Best Missionary ]
[ 477. Good Words from Confucius ]
[ 479. The Chinese and Civil Service Reform ]
[ 480. Invading China in the Name of Opium and Christ ]
[ 481. Don't be Dishonest in the Name of God ]
[ CONCERNING CREEDS AND THE TYRANNY OF SECTS ]
[ 482. Diversity of Opinion Abolished by Henry VIII ]
[ 483. Spencer and Darwin Damned ]
[ 484. The Dead do Not Persecute ]
[ 485. The Atheist a Legal Outcast in Illinois ]
[ 487. The Fate of Theological Students ]
[ 489. Presbyterianism Softening ]
[ 490. The Methodist "Hoist with his own Petard." ]
[ 491. The Precious Doctrine of Total Depravity ]
[ 494. Self-Reliance a Deadly Sin! ]
[ 495. A Hundred and Fifty Years Ago ]
[ 496. The Despotism of Faith ]
[ 498. Calvin's Petrified Heart ]
[ 500. Politeness at Athens! ]
[ 502. While the Preachers Talked the People Slept ]
[ 503. Christianity no Friend to Progress ]
[ 504. Where is the New Eden? ]
[ 505. The Real Eden is Beyond ]
[ 506. Party Names Belittle Men ]
[ 507. Where Did the Serpent Come From? ]
[ 508. Must We Believe Fables to be Good and True? Must we, in order to be ]
[ 509. Why Did Not God Kill the Serpent? ]
[ 510. Questions About the Ark ]
[ 511. Was Language Confounded at Babel. ]
[ 512. Would God Kill a Man for Making Ointment? ]
[ 513. How Did Water run up Hill? ]
[ 514. Would a Real God Uphold Slavery? ]
[ 515. Will There Be an Eternal Auto da Fe? ]
[ ORIENT PEARLS AS RANDOM STRUNG ]
[ INGERSOLL'S ORATION AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE ]
INGERSOLLIA
INTRODUCTION
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll occupies a unique position. He is to a large extent the product of his own generation. A man of the times, for the times. He has had no predecessor, he will have no successor.
Such a man was impossible a hundred years ago; the probabilities are that a century hence no such man will be needed. His work needs only to be done once. One such "voice crying in the wilderness" is enough to stir the sluggish streams of thought, and set the reeds of the river trembling. It was said of Edward Irving, when he went to preach in that great wilderness of London, that he was "not a reed to be shaken by the wind, but a wind to shake the reeds." It would not be flattery in any sense if similar words were spoken concerning the man who has uttered the words of this book.
Daring to stand alone, and speak all the thought that is in him, without the miserable affectation of singularity, Colonel Ingersoll has reached a point from which he wields an influence both deep and wide over thoughtful minds. For the last few years he has been sowing strange seeds, with unsparing hand, in many fields; and probably no one is more surprised than he is himself to find how thoroughly the ground was prepared for such a seed-sowing.
Time is much too precious to discuss the mere methods of the sowing. No doubt many who have listened to this later Gamaliel, have been startled and shocked by his bold, and sometimes terrific utterances; but after the shock—when the nerves have regained their equilibrium—has come serious, calm-questioning thought. And whoever sets men to asking earnest questions, whoever provokes men to sincere enquiry, whoever helps men to think freely, does the Man and the State and the Age good service. This good service Colonel Ingersoll has rendered. He has sent the Preachers back to a more careful and diligent study of the Bible; he has spoken after such a fashion that Students in many departments of learning have been compelled to reconsider the foundations on which their theories rest. Above all, he has awakened thousands of thoughtless people to the luxury of thinking, and he has inspired many a timid thinker to break all bonds and think freely and fearlessly for himself.
In referring some time ago to the subject matter of Colonel Ingersoll's teachings, Prof. David Swing, of Chicago, laid special emphasis on the point, that the man speaking and the thing spoken were entirely separable, and that no wise criticism of these words could proceed, unless this fact was kept in view. This word of caution is as timely as it is wise. We are too much prone to judge the music by the amount of gilding on the organ-pipes; we are too apt to forget that gold is gold, whether in the leathern pouch of a beggar or the silken purse of a king. The doubts expressed, the truths uttered, the questions proposed by the so-called Infidel, demand of us that for their own sakes we give them generous, patient audience. The point of supreme importance is, not whether Mr. Ingersoll is an authority on the grave questions with which he is pleased to deal, but are these teachings truth? "There's the rub." If we are wise we shall judge the teachings rather than the teacher.
Affrighted orthodox Christians are perpetually warning their young friends against Mr. Ingersoll. He is portrayed as a very terrible personage, going up and down to work sad havoc amongst the unsuspecting youth of the Time. Orthodoxy would prove itself wiser, it would be bolder, and it would give some slight guarantee for honesty, if it left the man alone, and addressed itself seriously to the grave questions at issue. Colonel Ingersoll shares with Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer the high distinction of being criticized most vehemently by those who have never heard his voice, and have never carefully read a page of his published works; and as is always the case in such circumstances, the most absurd and exaggerated statements of what Mr. Ingersoll never said have become current, and the speaker has been transformed into a very Gorgon of horror!
But this is nothing new, this is one of the many tolls that every man must be willing to pay who marches on the grand highway of freedom.
The pages of this book deserve a careful study, and if it be true that "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," we may judge from what sort of a heart-fountain these streams have flowed.
One purpose steadily kept in view in the editing of these pages has been to present in compact and reasonable space, a thoroughly representative consensus of the opinions and beliefs of Mr. Ingersoll. Ha has been known chiefly by his severe attacks on theological orthodoxy; but there are a thousand other questions on which he has spoken wise and impressive words. There are few things in heaven and earth that his "philosophy" has not embraced, The quiet life of the farm; the romance and sanctity of home; the charm of childhood; the profound secrets of philosophy; the horrors of slavery; the dreadful scourge of war; the patriotism and valor of the soldiers of the Republic; the high calling of statesmanship, churches and priests; infidels and christians; gods and devils; orthodox and hetrodox; heaven and hell;—these, and a thousand other questions have been discussed with wit, and wisdom and matchless eloquence. This volume might have been increased to twice or thrice its present size, and then there would have been material to spare. But in these busy days economy of time is of great importance. This is a book for busy men in a very busy generation.
It is matter of some little surprise that Mr. Ingersoll should have yielded—without protest—to the conventional use of the term "Infidel." The general sense in which the word is used is a gross misrepresentation of its accurate meaning. "Infidel," is the last word that ought to be applied to any man who is loyal to his mind; whether that mind summer in the light of steadfast belief, or wander through the mazy fields of doubt. "What is Infidelity?" There is no man more able, none more suitable than Col. Robert Ingersoll to rise and explain.
Mr. Ingersoll has been called the Apostle of Unbelief. But the title is a misnomer. His mouth is full to the lips of positive statements of strong conviction. His creed has a thousand articles. He is above all things the Apostle of Freedom. Freedom for Nations, for Communities, for Men. Freedom everywhere! Freedom always! the zeal with which he blows the trumpet of Liberty, the enthusiasm with which he waves the banner of Freedom, reminds one of Tennyson's fine words:—
Of old stood Freedom on the heights,
The thunders breaking at her feet,
Above her shook the starry lights;
She heard the torrents meet.
Then stepped she down thro' town and field
To mingle with the human race,
And part by part to men revealed
The fullness of her face—
Her open eyes desire the truth,
The wisdom of a thousand years
Is in them. May perpetual youth
Keep dry their light from tears;
That her fair form may stand and shine:
Make bright our days and light our dreams,
Tuning to scorn with lips divine
The falsehood of extremes!
THE ROMANCE OF FARM LIFE
1. Ingersoll as a Farmer
When I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons and sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about three hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt, and a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.
In those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was an unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work for the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger. We had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and the snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The horses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring the sides would be eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food is fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it took all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent actual starvation. In those times farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was immediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability. Women were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The wood-pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log, upon which an axe or two had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with. Pickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the house, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything was done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable.
2. The Happy Life of the Farm
There is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a serene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A professional man is doomed some time to find that his powers are wanting. He is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of life. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will be last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes as it were into partnership, with nature—he lives with trees and flowers—he breathes the sweet air of the fields. There is no constant and frightful strain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He watches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny slopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the trees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the children yet to be.
3. The Ambitious Farmer's Boy
Nearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he would never cultivate the soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left the desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They wanted to be book-keepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance agents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the farm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's—reading, writing and arithmetic—imagined that he had altogether more education than ought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get into some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those who went away.
4. Never Be Afraid of Work!
There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard and other colleges who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for insurance, clerks and copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of menial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as work—anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office, but they avoid farming as they would leprosy. Nearly every young man educated in this way is simply ruined.
Boys and girls should be educated to help themselves; they should be taught that it is disgraceful to be seen idle, and dishonorable to be useless.
5. Happiness the Object of Life
Remember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor—that you should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that all who work belong to the same noble family.
Happiness should be the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy, the children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the woods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy memories of the delight-ful years.
6. The Sunset of the Farmer's Life
For my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from his boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and lives where his father lived and died. I can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the country, out of the mad race for money, place and power—far from the demands of business—out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and strive for the hoi ow praise of other fools. Surrounded by these pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have loved, I hope to end my days.
7. Farmers, Protect Yourselves!
The farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to guard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than to vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars a thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in the States is a purchaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for cheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence enough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of this country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not mean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the general welfare.
8. Roast the Beef, Not the Cook.
Farmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell the rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all people in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable little stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that your wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make her cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the cook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient and right as to have them any other way.
9. Cultivated Farmers.
There is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most cultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men cross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with daisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the happiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he works in the dreary shop or the perfumed field.
10. The Wages of Slovenly Farming.
Nothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood in the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was no leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and weariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering herds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown down, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies, or eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or washed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack, or heated in the crib, or they all ran to vines, or tops, or straw, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait between the plow and reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop and a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And when the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked together for evil.
11. The Farmer's Happy Winter
I can imagine no condition that carries with it such a promise of joy as that of the farmer in early winter. He has his cellar filled—he had made every preparation for the days of snow and storm—he looks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of fireside content; three months with wife and children; three months of long, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid comfort.
12. The Almighty Dollar
Ainsworth R. Spofford—says Col. Ingersoll—gives the following facts about interest: "One dollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest collected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three hundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand two hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to nineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen thousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times as much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and seventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At eighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and forty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, it reaches the enormous sum of two billion, five hundred and fifty-one million, seven hundred and ninety-five thousand, four hundred and four dollars!" One dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one hundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.
13. The Farmer in Debt
Interest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows. The farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it gnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt, as soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy economy long enough.
14. Own Your Own Home
There can be no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it. There must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds, to preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a certain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other way. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man a little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He who has sat by his own fireside with wife and children, will defend it. Few men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defense of a boarding-house. The prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of people who are the owners of homes.
15. What to do with the Idlers
Our country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great question asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men? What shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must cultivate the soil. Farming must be more attractive. Those who work the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must educate their children to cultivate the soil.
16. Farm-Life Lonely
I say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must be done to make farm-life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the farm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they are found only in books. He who lives long alone, becomes insane.
17. The Best Farming States
The farmer in the Middle States has the best soil—the greatest return for the least labor—more leisure—more time for enjoyment than any other farmer in the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the long winters in which to become acquainted with his family—with his neighbors—in which to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day. He has the time and means of self-culture. He has more time than the mechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not well informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and every farmer can have enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all that has been accomplished by man.
18. The Laborers, the Kings and Queens
The farmer has been elevated through science, and he should not forget the debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He should remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family—that they are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.
HOME AND CHILDREN
19. The Family the Only Heaven in this World
Don't make that poor girl play ten years on a piano when she has no ear for music, and when she has practiced until she can play "Bonaparte Crossing the Alps," you can't tell after she has played it whether Bonaparte ever got across or not. Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers, and if there is any Heaven in this world it is in the family. It is where the wife loves the husband, and the husband loves the wife, and where the dimpled arms of children are about the necks of both.
20. The Far-Seeing Eyes of Children.
I want to tell you this, you cannot get the robe of hypocrisy on you so thick that the sharp eye of childhood will not see through every veil.
21. Love and Freedom in a Cabin
I would rather go to the forest far away and build me a little cabin—build it myself and daub it with mud, and live there with my wife aud family—and have a little path that led down to the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night, like a little poem from the heart of the earth; a little hut with some hollyhocks at the corner, with their bannered bosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in the air, like a song of joy in the morning; I would rather live there and have some lattice work across the window, so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the cradle; I would rather live there and have my soul erect and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the crown of imperial power and know that my soul was slimy with hypocrisy.
22. The Turnpike Road of Happiness
Whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says, "I will make her happy," makes no mistake; and so with the woman who says, "I will make him happy." There is only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and you can't be happy cross-lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.
23. Love Paying Ten Per Cent
I tell you to-night there is on the average more love in the homes of the poor than in the palaces of the rich; and the meanest hut with love in it is fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts. That's my doctrine! You can't be so poor but that you can help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender both. Don't tell me that you have got to be rich! We have all a false standard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man to be great must be notorious; he must be extremely wealthy or his name must be between the lips of rumor. It is all nonsense! It is not necessary to be rich to be great, or to be powerful to be happy; and the happy man is the successful man. Happiness is the legal-tender of the soul. Joy is wealth.
24. A Word to the Cross-Grained
A cross man I hate above all things. What right has he to murder the sunshine of the day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life? When you go home you ought to feel the light there is in the house; if it is in the night it will burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate the darkness. It is just as well to go home a ray of sunshine as an old, sour, cross curmudgeon, who thinks he is the head of the family. Wise men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the Fifth ward; they have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds; they have bought calico at eight cents or six, and want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that must have been upon a man, and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort. Head of the house, indeed! I don't like him a bit!
25. Oh! Daughters and Wives be Beautiful
I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every woman to make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can. "Handsome is as handsome does," but she is much handsomer if well dressed. Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in good clothes. The time never ought to come in this country when you can tell a farmer's daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to every girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be, no matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion. I believe in jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my judgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of a wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our nature, and this desire, seems to be everywhere and in everything. I have sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with flowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the chamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. Oh! daughters and wives if you would be loved, adorn yourselves—if you would be adorned, be beautiful!
26. A Wholesome Word to the Stingy
I despise a stingy man. I don't see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty millions of dollars or ten millions of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or thirty millions of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the sea. I should not think he could do it. Do you know I have known men who would trust their wives with their hearts and their honor, but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar. When I see a man of that kind I always think he knows which of these articles is the most valuable.
27. The Boss of the Family
If you are the grand emperor of the world, you had better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the grand empress of yours. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies a beggar, his life has been a success. I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling—a man who is "boss," who is going to govern in his family; and when he speaks let all the rest of them be still; some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man?
28. Be Honor Bright!
A good way to make children tell the truth is to tell it yourself. Keep your word with your child the same as you would with your banker. Be perfectly honor bright with your children, and they will be your friends when you are old.
29. The Opera at the Table
I like to hear children at the table telling what big things they have seen during the day; I like to hear their merry voices mingling with the clatter of knives and forks. I had rather hear that than any opera that was ever put upon the stage. I hate this idea of authority.
30. A Child's laugh sweeter than Apollo's lyre
I said, and I say again, no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills: but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh, the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy; oh, rippling river of life, thou art the blessed boundary-line between the beasts and man, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fiend of care; oh, laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples enough in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.
31. Don't Wake the Children
Let your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the darkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome, irksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. Treat your children with infinite kindness—treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not filled with love. When the husband hates his wife—where the wife hates the husband; where the children hate their parents and each other—there is a hell upon earth.
32. How to Deal with Children
Some Christians act as though they thought when the Lord said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," that he had a rawhide under his mantle—they act as if they thought so. That is all wrong. I tell my children this: Go where you may, commit what crime you may, fall to what depths of degradation you may, I can never shut my arms, my heart or my door to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend; do not be afraid to tell anything wrong you have done; ten to one if I have not done the same thing. I am not perfection, and if it is necessary to sin in order to have sympathy, I am glad I have committed sin enough to have sympathy. The sterness of perfection I do not want. I am going to live so that my children can come to my grave and truthfully say, "He who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." Whether you call that religion or infidelity, suit yourselves; that is the way I intend to do it.
33. Give a Child a Chance
Do not create a child to be a post set in an orthodox row; raise investigators and thinkers, not disciples and followers; cultivate reason, not faith; cultivate investigation, not superstition; and if you have any doubt yourself about a thing being so, tell them about it; don't tell them the world was made in six days—if you think six days means six good whiles, tell them six good whiles. If you have any doubts about anybody being in a furnace and not being burnt, or even getting uncomfortably warm, tell them so—be honest about it. If you look upon the jaw-bone of a donkey as not a good weapon, say so. Give a child a chance. If you think a man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so, it won't make them any worse. Be honest—that's all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years to unlearn; tell them facts—it is just as easy. It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history—it is as easy to find out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about.
34. The Greatest Liars in Michigan
I was over in Michigan the other day. There was a boy over there at Grand Rapids about five or six years old, a nice, smart boy, as you will see from the remark he made—what you might call a nineteenth century boy. His father and mother had promised to take him out riding for about three weeks, and they would slip off and go without him. Well, after a while that got kind of played out with the little boy, and the day before I was there they played the trick on him again. They went out and got the carriage, and went away, and as they rode away from the front of the house, he happened to be standing there with his nurse, and he saw them. The whole thing flashed on him in a moment. He took in the situation, and turned to his nurse and said, pointing to his father and mother: "There go the two biggest liars in the State of Michigan!" When you go home fill the house with joy, so that the light of it will stream out the windows and doors, and illuminate even the darkness. It is just as easy that way as any in the world.
35. Forgive the Children!
When your child confesses to you that it has com mitted a fault, take the child in your arms, and let it feel your heart beat against its heart, and raise your children in the sunlight of love, and they will be sunbeams to you along the pathway of life. Abolish the club and the whip from the house, because, if the civilized use a whip, the ignorant and the brutal will use a club, and they will use it because you use the whip.
36. A Solemn Satire on Whipping Children
If there is one of you here that ever expect to whip your child again, let me ask you something. Have your photograph taken at the time, and let it show your face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little one with eyes swimming in tears. If that little child should die I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an Autumn afternoon than to take that photograph and go to the cemetery, where the maples are clad in tender gold, and when little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth; and sit down upon that mound, I look upon that photograph, and think of the flesh, made dust, that you beat. Just think of it. I could not bear to die in the arms of a child that I had whipped. I could not bear to feel upon my lips, when they were withering beneath the touch of death, the kiss of one that I had struck.
37. The Whips and Gods are Gone!
Children are better treated than they used to be; the old whips and gods are out of the schools, and they are governing children by love and sense. The world is getting better; it is getting better in Maine. It has got better in Maine, in Vermont. It is getting better in every State of the North.
INDIVIDUALITY
38. Absolute Independence of the Individual
What we want to-day is what our fathers wrote. They did not attain to their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not yet reached it. We want, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of a nation, but something far more glorious—the absolute independence of the individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the children of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can say this is my air, my sunshine, my earth, and I have a right to live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that labor, as much as any individual, or any nation on the face of the globe.
39. Saved by Disobedience
I tell you there is something splendid in man that will not always mind. Why, if we had done as the kings told us five hundred years ago, we would all have been slaves. If we had done as the priests told us, we would all have been idiots. If we had done as the doctors told us, we would all have been dead. We have been saved by disobedience. We have been saved by that splendid thing called independence, and I want to see more of it, day after day, and I want to see children raised so they will have it. That is my doctrine.
40. Intellectual Tyranny
Nothing can be more infamous than intellectual tyranny. To put chains upon the body is as nothing compared with putting shackles on the brain. No god is entitled to the worship or the respect of man who does not give, even to the meanest of his children, every right that he claims for himself.
41. Say What You Think
I do not believe that the tendency is to make men and women brave and glorious when you tell them that there are certain ideas upon certain subjects that they must never express; that they must go through life with a pretense as a shield; that their neighbors will think much more of them if they will only keep still; and that above all is a God who despises one who honestly expresses what he believes. For my part, I believe men will be nearer honest in business, in politics, grander in art—in everything that is good and grand and beautiful, if they are taught from the cradle to the coffin to tell their honest opinions.
42. I Want to Put Out the Fires of Hell
Some people tell me that I take away the hope of immortality. I do not. Leave heaven as it was! I want to put out the fires of hell. I want to transfer the war from this earth to heaven. Some tell me Jehovah is God, and another says Ali is God, and another that Brahma is God. I say, let Jehovah, and Ali, and Brahma fight it out. Let them fight it out there, and whoever is victor, to that God I will bow.
43. The Puritans
When the Puritans first came they were narrow. They did not understand what liberty meant—what religious liberty, what political liberty, was; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling among them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the clouds—they were in favor of universal education. Wherever they went they built school houses, introduced books, and ideas of literature. They believed that every man should know how to read and how to write, and should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend. That is the glory of the Puritan fathers.
44. A Star in the Sky of Despair
Every Christian, every philanthropist, every believer in human liberty, should feel under obligation to Thomas Paine for the splendid service rendered by him in the darkest days of the American Revolution. In the midnight of Valley Forge, "The Crisis" was the first star that glittered in the wide horizon of despair. Every good man should remember with gratitude the brave words spoken by Thomas Paine in the French Convention against the death of Louis. He said: "We will kill the king, but not the man. We will destroy monarchy, not monarch."
45. Do not Shock the Heathen!
You send missionaries to Turkey, and tell them that the Koran is a lie. You shock them. You tell them that Mahomet was not a prophet. You shock them. It is too bad to shock them. You go to India, and you tell them that Vishnu was nothing, that Purana was nothing, that Buddha was nobody, and your Brahma, he is nothing. Why do you shock these people? You should not do that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. I tell you no man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression of an honest opinion when it is kindly done, and I don't believe there is any God in the universe who has put a curtain over the fact and made it a crime for the honest hand of investigation to endeavor to draw that curtain.
46. I will Settle with God Myself
They say to me, "God will punish you forever, if you do these things." Very well. I will settle with him. I had rather settle with him than any one of his agents. I do not like them very well. In theology I am a granger—I do not believe in middlemen. What little business I have with Heaven I will attend to myself.
47. I Claim my Right to Guess
I claim, standing under the flag of nature, under the blue and the stars, that I am the peer of any other man, and have the right to think and express my thoughts. I claim that in the presence of the Unknown, and upon a subject that nobody knows anything about, and never did, I have as good a right to guess as anybody else.
48. The Brain a Castle
Surely it is worth something to feel that there are no priests, no popes, no parties, no governments, no kings, no gods, to whom your intellect can be compelled to pay reluctant homage. Surely it is a joy to know that all the cruel ingenuity of bigotry can devise no prison, no dungeon, no cell in which for one instant to confine a thought; that ideas cannot be dislocated by racks, nor crushed in iron boots, nor burned with fire. Surely it is sublime to think that the brain is a castle, and that within its curious bastions and winding halls the soul, in spite of all words and all beings, is the supreme sovereign of itself.
49. I am Something
The universe is all there is, or was, or will be. It is both subject and object; contemplator and contemplated; creator and created; destroyer and destroyed; preserver and preserved; and hath within itself all causes, modes, motions, and effects. In this there is hope. This is a foundation and a star. The infinite embraces all there is. Without the all, the infinite cannot be. I am something. Without me the universe cannot exist.
50. Every Man a Bight to Think
Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequence like a man.
51. Too Early to Write a Creed
These are the excuses I have for my race, and taking everything into consideration, I think we have done extremely well. Let us have more liberty and free thought. Free thought will give us truth. It is too early in the history of the world to write a creed. Our fathers were intellectual slaves; our fathers were intellectual serfs. There never has been a free generation on the globe. Every creed you have got bears the mark of whip, and chain, and fagot.
There has been no creed written by a free brain. Wait until we have had two or three generations of liberty and it will then be time enough to seize the swift horse of progress by the bridle and say—thus far and no farther; and in the meantime let us be kind to each other; let us be decent towards each other. We are all travelers on the great plain we call life, and there is nobody quite sure what road to take—not just dead sure, you know. There are lots of guide-boards on the plain and you find thousands of people swearing to-day that their guide-board is the only board that shows the right direction. I go and talk to them and they say: "You go that way, or you will be damned." I go to another and they say: "You go this way, or you will be damned."
52. Every Mind True to Itself
In my judgment, every human being should take a road of his own. Every mind should be true to itself—should think, investigate and conclude for itself. This is a duty alike incumbent upon pauper and prince.
PROGRESS
53. The Torch of Progress.
In every age some men carried the torch of progress and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such men we would have been naked and uncivilized to-night, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish.
54. Gold makes a Barren Landscape
Only a few days ago I was where they wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks. When I saw the mountains; treeless, shrubless, flowerless, without even a spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon the country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for it. It affects the land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren without a flower of kindness—without a blossom of pity.
55. A Grand Achievement
There is nothing grander than to rescue from the leprosy of slander the reputation of a great and generous name. There is nothing nobler than to benefit our benefactors.
56. The Divorce of Church and State
The Constitution of the United States was the first decree entered in the high court of a nation, forever divorcing Church and State.
57. Professors
Instead of dismissing professors for finding something out, let us rather discharge those who do not. Let each teacher understand that investigation is not dangerous for him; that his bread is safe, no matter how much truth he may discover, and that his salary will not be reduced, simply because he finds that the ancient Jews did not know the entire history of the world.
58. Developement
I thought after all I had rather belong to a race of people that came from skulless vertebrae in the dim Laurentian period, that wiggled without knowing they were wiggling, that began to develope and came up by a gradual developement until they struck this gentleman in the dugout coming up slowly—up—up—up—until, for instance, they produced such a man as Shakespeare—he who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and after whom all others have been only gleaners of straw, he who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it became a palace—producing him and hundreds of others I might mention—with the angels of progress leaning over the far horizon beckoning this race of work and thought—I had rather belong to a race commencing at the skulless vertebrae producing the gentleman in the dugout and so on up, than to have descended from a perfect pair, upon which the Lord has lost money from that day to this. I had rather belong to a race that is going up than to one that is going down. I would rather belong to one that commenced at the skulless vertebrae and started for perfection, than to belong to one that started from perfection and started for the skulless vertebrae.
59. Poet's Dream
When every church becomes a school, every cathedral a university, every clergyman a teacher, and all their hearers brave and honest thinkers, then, and not until then, will the dream of poet, patriot, philanthropist and philosopher, become a real and blessed truth.
60. The Temple of the Future
We are laying the foundations of the grand temple of the future—not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people—wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants—gorged indolence and famished industry—truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. We are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when Reason, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the King of Kings, and God of Gods.
61. The final Goal
We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to the end; the real end being the happiness of man.
62. The Eighteenth Century
At that time the seeds sown by the great Infidels were beginning to bear fruit in France. The people were beginning to think. The Eighteenth Century was crowning its gray hairs with the wreath of Progress. On every hand Science was bearing testimony against the Church. Voltaire had filled Europe with light; D'Holbach was giving to the elite of Paris the principles contained in his "System of Nature." The Encyclopedists had attacked superstition with information for the masses. The foundation of things began to be examined. A few had the courage to keep their shoes on and let the bush burn. Miracles began to get scarce. Everywhere the people began to inquire. America had set an example to the world. The word Liberty was in the mouths of men, and they began to wipe the dust from their knees. The dawn of a new day had appeared.
POLITICAL QUESTIONS
63. Liberty—Fraternity—Equality!
All who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only flag that has in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality—the three grandest words in all the languages of men. Liberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor—the labor of his hand and of his brain. Fraternity: Every man in the right is my brother. Equality: The rights of all are equal. No race, no color, no previous condition, can change the rights of men. The Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter and in spirit. To-day the black man looks upon his child and says: The avenues of distinction are open to you—upon your brow may fall the civic wreath. We are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad shout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the Atlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of happy homes.
64. Liberty!
Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science? Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons, the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are chained to floors of stone? Is it nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of day,—to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it nothing to relieve the heavens of an insatiate monster, and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word—Liberty?
65. Ingersoll Not a Politician
I want it perfectly understood that I am not a politician. I believe in liberty, and I want to see the time when every man, woman and child will enjoy every human right.
66. Civilization
Civilization is the child of free thought. The new world has drifted away from the rotten wharf of superstition. The politics of this country are being settled by the new ideas of individual liberty, and parties and churches that cannot accept the new truths must perish.
67. Cornell University
With the single exception of Cornell, there is not a college in the United States where truth has ever been a welcome guest. The moment one of the teachers denies the inspiration of the Bible, he is discharged. If he discovers a fact inconsistent with that book, so much the worse for the fact, and especially for the discoverer of the fact. He must not corrupt the minds of his pupils with demonstrations. He must beware of every truth that cannot, in some way, be made to harmonize with the superstitions of the Jews. Science has nothing in common with religion.
68. Church and School Divorced
Our country will never be filled with great institutions of learning until there is an absolute divorce between church and school. As long as the mutilated records of a barbarous people are placed by priest and professor above the reason of mankind, we shall reap but little benefit from church or school.
69. Laws That Want Repealing
All laws defining and punishing blasphemy—making it a crime to give your honest ideas about the Bible, or to laugh at the ignorance of the ancient Jews, or to enjoy yourself on the Sabbath, or to give your opinion of Jehovah, were passed by impudent bigots, and should be at once repealed by honest men.
70. Government Secular
Our government should be entirely and purely secular. The religious views of a candidate should be kept entirely out of sight. He should not be compelled to give his opinion as to the inspiration of the bible, the propriety of infant baptism, or the immaculate conception. All these things are private and personal. He should be allowed to settle such things for himself.
71. 1876! (1776?)
In 1876, our forefathers retired God from politics. They said all power comes from the people. They kept God out of the Constitution, and allowed each State to settle the question for itself.
72. Candidates Made Hypocrites
Candidates are forced to pretend that they are Catholics with Protestant proclivities, or Christians with liberal tendencies, or temperance men who now and then take a glass of wine, or, that although not members of any church their wives are, and that they subscribe liberally to all. The result of all this is that we reward hypocrisy and elect men entirely destitute of real principle; and this will never change until the people become grand enough to allow each other to do their own thinking.
73. The Church and the Throne
So our fathers said: "We shall form a secular government, and under the flag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man to worship God as he thinks best." They said: "Religion is an individual thing between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as he pleases and as he desires." And why did they do this? The history of the world warned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp of any church. They had read of and seen the thumbscrews, the racks and the dungeons of the inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of the olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with the throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings were robbers. They also knew that if they gave to any church power, it would corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power must not reside in a church, nor in a sect, but power must be wherever humanity is—in the great body of the people. And the officers and servants of the people must be responsible. And so I say again, as I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the bravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.
74. The Old Idea
What was the old idea? The old idea was that no political power came from, nor in any manner belonged to, the people. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds; that the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that it came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea. The nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights; the nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings pretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then, of political power was from above. The people were responsible to the nobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights whatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were responsible to God, not to the people. The kings were responsible to the clouds, not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.
75. Liberty for Politicians
I would like also to liberate the politician. At present, the successful office-seeker is a good deal like the centre of the earth; he weighs nothing himself, but draws everything else to him. There are so many societies, so many churches, so many isms, that it is almost impossible for an independent man to succeed in a political career.
76. Tax all Church Property
I am in favor of the taxation of all church property. If that property belongs to God, he is able to pay the tax. If we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan. The church has to-day $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of property in this country. It must cost $2,000,000 a week, that is to say $500 a minute to run these churches. You give me this money and if I don't do more good with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let them make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. They will have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. The time will come when the preacher will become a teacher.
77. The Source of Power
The Declaration of Independence announces the sublime truth, that all power comes from the people. This was a denial, and the first denial of a nation, of the infamous dogma that God confers the right upon one man to govern others. It was the first grand assertion of the dignity of the human race. It declared the governed to be the source of power, and in fact denied the authority of any and all gods.
78. The Best Blood of the Old Word come to the New
The kings of the old world endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there were too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to take and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with the old country—who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The king's favorites stayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain principles they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of a new land; and the consequences was that our country was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of their own, and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees, rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.
79. No State Church
Happily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the rest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies differed widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who hated the Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics, and the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in contempt. There they were of every sort, and color, and kind, and how was it that they came together? They had a common aspiration. They wanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially hated Great Britain; and they pledged each other to forget these religious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should be only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion of patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not belong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of all.
80. The Enthusiasts of 1776
These grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has only been raised by enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given a national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the builders and framers of this great and splendid government; and they were the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory, that will finally cover this world. They knew, they felt, they believed they would give a new constellation to the political heavens—that they would make the Americans a grand people—grand as the continent upon which they lived.
81. The Church Must Have no Sword
Our fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded in this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first government that said every church has exactly the same rights and no more. In other words our fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to know that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be allowed only to exert its moral influence.
82. We are All of Us Kings! I want the power where some one can use
it. As long as a man is responsible to the people there is no fear of despotism. There's no reigning family in this country. We are all of us Kings. We are the reigning family. And when any man talks about despotism, you may be sure he wants to steal or be up to devilment. If we have any sense, we have got to have localization of brain. If we have any power, we must have centralization. We want centralization of the right kind. The man we choose for our head wants the army in one hand, the navy in the other; and to execute the supreme will of the supreme people.
83. Honesty Tells!
In the long run the nation that is honest, the people that are industrious, will pass the people that are dishonest, the people that are idle; no matter what grand ancestry they might have had.
84. Working for Others.
To work for others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for himself. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless somebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least one victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures none. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail. The same is true of all producers—of all laborers.
85. State Sovereignty
I despise the doctrine of State sovereignty. I believe in the rights of the States, but not in the sovereignty of the States. States are political conveniences. Rising above States as the Alps above valleys are the rights of man. Rising above the rights of the government even in this Nation are the sublime rights of the people. Governments are good only so long as they protect human rights. But the rights of a man never should be sacrificed upon the altar of the State or upon the altar of the Nation.
86. The King of America
I am not only in favor of free speech, but I am also in favor of an absolutely honest ballot. There is one king in this country; there is one emperor; there is one supreme czar; and that is the legally expressed will of the majority of the people. The man who casts an illegal vote, the man who refuses to count a legal vote, poisons the fountain of power, poisons the spring of justice, and is a traitor to the only king in this land. I have always said, and I say again, that the more liberty there is given away the more you have. There is room in this world for us all; there is room enough for all of our thoughts; out upon the intellectual sea there is room for every sail, and in the intellectual air there is space for every wing. A man that exercises a right that he will not give to others is a barbarian. A State that does not allow free speech is uncivilized, and is a disgrace to the American Union.
87. Years Without Seeing a Dollar!
I have been told that during the war we had plenty of money. I never saw it. I lived years without seeing a dollar. I saw promises for dollars, but not dollars. And the greenback, unless you have the gold behind it, is no more a dollar than a bill of fare is a dinner. You cannot make a paper dollar without taking a dollar's worth of paper. We must have paper that represents money. I want it issued by the government, and I want behind every one of these dollars either a gold or silver dollar, so that every greenback under the flag can lift up its hand and swear, "I know that my redeemer liveth."
88. The Wail of Dead Nations
A government founded upon anything except liberty and justice cannot and ought not to stand. All the wrecks on either side of the stream of time, all the wrecks of the great cities, and all the nations that have passed away—all are a warning that no nation founded upon injustice can stand. From the sand-enshrouded Egypt, from the marble wilderness of Athens, and from every fallen, crumbling stone of the once mighty Rome, comes a wail, as it were, the cry that no nation founded upon injustice can permanently stand.
89. What the Republican Party Did
I am a Republican. I will tell you why: This is the only free government in the world. The Republican party made it so. The Republican party took the chains from 4,000,000 of people. The Republican party, with the wand of progress, touched the auction-block and it became a school-house; The Republican party put down the rebellion, saved the nation, kept the old banner afloat in the air, and declared that slavery of every kind should be exterpated from the face of the continent.
90. Doings of Democrats
I am opposed to the Democratic party, and I will tell you why. Every State that seceded from the United States was a Democratic State. Every ordinance of secession that was drawn was drawn by a Democrat. Every man that endeavored to tear the old flag from the heaven that it enriches was a Democrat. Every man that tried to destroy the nation was a Democrat. Every enemy this great republic has had for twenty years has been a Democrat. Every man that shot Union soldiers was a Democrat. Every man that starved Union soldiers and refused them in the extremity of death, a crust, was a Democrat. Every man that loved slavery better than liberty was a Democrat. The man that assassinated Abraham Lincoln was a Democrat. Every man that sympathized with the assassin—every man glad that the noblest President ever elected was assassinated, was a Democrat.
91. Photograph of a Democrat.
Every man that wanted the privilege of whipping another man to make him work for him for nothing and pay him with lashes on his naked back, was a Democrat. Every man that raised blood-hounds to pursue human beings was a Democrat. Every man that clutched from shrieking, shuddering, crouching mothers, babes from their breasts, and sold them into slavery, was a Democrat. Every man that impaired the credit of the United States, every man that swore we would never pay the bonds, every man that swore we would never redeem the greenbacks, every maligner of his country's credit, every calumniator of his country's honor, was a Democrat. Every man that resisted the draft, every man that hid in the bushes and shot at Union men simply because they were endeavoring to enforce the laws of their country, was a Democrat. Every man that wept over the corpse of slavery was a Democrat.
92. I am a Republican, I Tell You!
The flag that will not protect its protectors is a dirty rag that contaminates the air in which it waves. The government that will not defend its defenders is a disgrace to the nations of the world. I am a Republican because the Republican party says, "We will protect the rights of American citizens at home, and if necessary we will march an army into any State to protect the rights of the humblest American citizen in that State." I am a Republican because that party allows me to be free—allows me to do my own thinking in my own way. I am a Republican because it is a party grand enough and splendid enough and sublime enough to invite every human being in favor of liberty and progress to fight shoulder to shoulder for the advancement of mankind. It invites the Methodist; it invites the Catholic; it invites the Presbyterian and every kind of sectarian; it invites the free-thinker; it invites the infidel, provided he is in favor of giving to every other human being every chance and every right that he claims for himself. I am a Republican, I tell you.
93. Recollect!
Recollect it! Every man that tried to spread smallpox and yellow fever in the North, as the instrumentalities of civilized war, was a Democrat. Soldiers, every scar you have got on your heroic bodies was given you by a Democrat. Every scar, every arm that is lacking, every limb that is gone, every scar is a souvenir of a Democrat. I want you to recollect it. Every man that was the enemy of human liberty in this country was a Democrat. Every man that wanted the fruit of all the heroism of all the ages to turn to ashes upon the lips—every one was a Democrat.
94. Give Every Man a Chance
Now, my friends, thousands of the Southern people, and thousands of the Northern Democrats, are afraid that the negroes are going to pass them in the race for life. And, Mr. Democrat, he will do it unless you attend to your business. The simple fact that you are white cannot save you always. You have got to be industrious, honest, to cultivate a justice. If you don't the colored race will pass you, as sure as you live. I am for giving every man a chance. Anybody that can pass me is welcome.
95. Who Shall Rule the Country?
Shall the people that saved this country rule it? Shall the men who saved the old flag hold it? Shall the men who saved the ship of state sail it? or shall the rebels walk her quarter-deck, give the orders and sink it? That is the question. Shall a solid South, a united South, united by assassination and murder, a South solidified by the shot-gun; shall a united South, with the aid of a divided North, shall they control this great and splendid country? Well, then, the North must wake up. We are right back where we were in 1861. This is simply a prolongation of the war. This is the war of the idea, the other was the war of the musket. The other was the war of cannon, this is the war of thought, and we have got to beat them in this war of thought, recollect that. The question is, Shall the men who endeavored to destroy this country rule it? Shall the men that said, This is not a nation, have charge of the nation?
96. The Declaration of Independence
The Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and the profoundest political document that was ever signed by the representatives of the people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral courage and of political wisdom. I say physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against the most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by thirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few people, without military stores, without wealth, without strength, against the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war made when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was hovering along the coast of America, looking after defenseless towns and villages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English soldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America were in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all things considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by man.
97. The World Grows Brighter.
I have a dream that this world is growing better and better every day and every year; that there is more charity, more justice, more love every day. I have a dream that prisons will not always curse the earth; that the shadow of the gallows will not always fall on the land; that the withered hand of want will not always be stretched out for charity; that finally wisdom will sit in the legislature, justice in the courts, charity will occupy all the pulpits, and that finally the world will be controlled by liberty and love, by justice and charity. That is my dream, and if it does not come true, it shall not be my fault.
98. The Column of July
I stood, a little while ago, in the city of Paris, where stood the Bastile, where now stands the column of July, surmounted by the figure of Liberty. In its right hand is a broken chain, in its left hand a hammer; upon its shining forehead a glittering star—and as I looked upon it I said, such is the Republican party of my country.
99. A Nation of Rascals
Samuel J. Tilden says we are a nation of thieves and rascals. If that is so he ought to be President. But I denounce him as a calumniator of my country; a maligner of this nation. It is not so. This country is covered with asylums for the aged, the helpless, the insane, the orphan, the wounded soldiers. Thieves and rascals don't build such things. In the cities of the Atlantic coast this summer, they built floating hospitals, great ships, and took the little children from the sub-cellars and narrow, dirty streets of New York city, where the Democratic party is the strongest—took these poor waifs and put them in these great hospitals out at sea, and let the breezes of ocean kiss the rose of health back to their pallid cheeks. Rascals and thieves do not do so. When Chicago burned, railroads were blocked with the charity of the American people. Thieves and rascals did not do so.
100. We are a Great People
We are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty—thirteen states to thirty-eight. We have better homes, and more of the conveniences of life than any other people upon the face of the globe. The farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes two hundred years ago—and they have twice as much sense and heart. Liberty and labor have given us all. Remember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts best his part—who loves his friends the best—is most willing to help others—truest to the obligation—who has the best heart—the most feeling—the deepest sympathies—and who freely gives to others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air, and have given one country to mankind.
101. Mule Equality
Suppose there was a great horse-race here to-day, free to every horse in the world, and to all the mules, and all the scrubs, and all the donkeys. At the tap of the drum they come to the line, and the judges say "it is a go." Let me ask you, what does the blooded horse, rushing ahead, with nostrils distended, drinking in the breath of his own swiftness, with his mane flying like a banner of victory, with his veins standing out all over him, as if a net of life had been cast around him—with his thin neck, his high withers, his tremulous flanks—what does he care how many mules and donkeys run on the track? But the Democratic scrub, with his chuckle-head and lop-ears, with his tail full of cockle-burs, jumping high and short, and digging in the ground when he feels the breath of the coming mule on his cockle-bur tail, he is the chap that jumps the track and says, "I am down on mule equality." My friends, the Republican party is the blooded horse in this race.
102. Room for Every Wing.
There is room in the Republican air for every wing; there is room on the Republican sea for every sail. Republicanism says to every man: "Let your soul be like an eagle; fly out in the great dome of thought, and question the stars for yourself."
103. The Republican Platform.
I am a Republican because it is the only free party that ever existed. It is a party that had a platform as broad as humanity, a platform as broad as the human race, a party that says you shall have all the fruit of the labor of your hands, a party that says you may think for yourself; a party that says no chains for the hands, no fetters for the soul.
104. Our Government the best on Earth
We all want a good government. If we do not we should have none. We all want to live in a land where the law is supreme. We desire to live beneath a flag that will protect every citizen beneath its folds. We desire to be citizens of a government so great and so grand that it will command the respect of the civilized world. Most of us are convinced that our government is the best upon this earth.
105. Will the Second Century of America be as good as the First?
Standing here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden threshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as good as the first? I believe it will because we are growing more and more humane; I believe there is more human kind-ness and a greater desire to help one another in America, than in all the world besides. We must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The steam engine—the telegraph—these are but the toys with which science has been amusing herself. There will be grander things. There will be higher and wider culture. A grander standard of character, of literature and art. We have now half as many millions of people as we have years. We are getting more real solid sense. We are writing and reading more books. We are struggling more and more to get at the philosophy of life—trying more and more to answer the questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every direction. We are investigating, thinking, working! The second century will be grander than the first.
SCIENCE
106. The Glory of Science.
Science found agriculture plowing with a stick—reaping with a sickle—commerce at the mercy of the treacherous waves and the inconstant winds—a world without books—without schools—man denying the authority of reason, employing his ingenuity in the manufacture of instruments of torture, in building inquisitions and cathedrals. It found the land filled with malicious monks—with persecuting Protestants, and the burners of men. The glory of science is, that it is freeing the soul—breaking the mental manacles—getting the brain out of bondage—giving courage to thought—filling the world with mercy, justice, and joy.
107. The Tables Turned
For the establishment of facts, the word of man is now considered far better than the word of God. In the world of science, Jehovah was superseded by Copernicus, Galileo, and Kepler. All that God told Moses, admitting the entire account to be true, is dust and ashes compared to the discoveries of Des Cartes, La Place, and Humboldt. In matters of fact, the Bible has ceased to be regarded as a standard. Science has succeeded in breaking the chains of theology. A few years ago, science endeavored to show that it was not inconsistent with the Bible. The tables have been turned, and now, religion is endeavoring to prove that the Bible is not inconsistent with science. The standard has been changed.
108. Science Better than a Creed
It seems to me that a belief in the great truths of science are fully as essential to salvation, as the creed of any church. We are taught that a man may be perfectly acceptable to God even if he denies the rotundity of the earth, the Copernican system, the three laws of Kepler, the indestructibility of matter and the attraction of gravitation. And we are also taught that a man may be right upon all these questions, and yet, for failing to believe in the "scheme of salvation," be eternally lost.
109. The Religion of Science
Every assertion of individual independence has been a step toward infidelity. Luther started toward Humboldt,—Wesley, toward John Stuart Mill. To really reform the church is to destroy it. Every new religion has a little less superstition than the old, so that the religion of science is but a question of time.
110. Science not Sectarian
The sciences are not sectarian. People do not persecute each other on account of disagreements in mathematics. Families are not divided about botany, and astronomy does not even tend to make a man hate his father and mother. It is what people do not know, that they persecute each other about. Science will bring, not a sword, but peace.
111. The Epitaph of all Religions
Science has written over the high altar its mené, mené, tekel, UPHARSIN—the old words, destined to be the epitaph of all religions?
112. The Real Priest
When we abandon the doctrine that some infinite being created matter and force, and enacted a code of laws for their government, the idea of interference will be lost. The real priest will then be, not the mouth-piece of some pretended deity, but the interpreter of nature. From that moment the church ceases to exist. The tapers will die out upon the dusty altar; the moths will eat the fading velvet of pulpit and pew; the Bible will take its place with the Shastras, Puranas, Vedas, Eddas, Sagas and Korans, and the fetters of a degrading faith will fall from the minds of men.
113. Science is Power
From a philosophical point of view, science is knowledge of the laws of life; of the conditions of happiness; of the facts by which we are surrounded, and the relations we sustain to men and things—by means of which, man, so to speak, subjugates nature and bends the elemental powers to his will, making blind force the servant of his brain.
114. Science Supreme
The element of uncertainty will, in a great measure, be removed from the domain of the future, and man, gathering courage from a succession of victories over the obstructions of nature, will attain a serene grandeur unknown to the disciples of any superstition. The plans of mankind will no longer be interfered with by the finger of a supposed omnipotence, and no one will believe that nations or individuals are protected or destroyed by any deity whatever. Science, freed from the chains of pious custom and evangelical prejudice, will, within her sphere, be supreme. The mind will investigate without reverence, and publish its conclusions without fear. Agassiz will no longer hesitate to declare the Mosaic cosmogony utterly inconsistent with the demonstrated truths of geology, and will cease pretending any reverence for the Jewish scriptures. The moment science succeeds in rendering the church powerless for evil, the real thinkers will be outspoken. The little flags of truce carried by timid philosophers will disappear, and the cowardly parley will give place to victory—lasting and universal.
115. Science Opening the Gates of Thought
We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We are not forging fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought.
116. Stars and Grains of Sand
We do not say that we have discovered all; that our doctrines are the all in all of truth. We know of no end to the development of man. We cannot unravel the infinite complications of matter and force. The history of one monad is as unknown as that of the universe; one drop of water is as wonderful as all the seas; one leaf, as all the forests; and one grain of sand, as all the stars.
117. The Trinity of Science
Reason, Observation and Experience—the Holy Trinity of Science—have taught us that happiness is the only good; that the time to be happy is now, and the way to be happy is to make others so. This is enough for us. In this belief we are content to live and die. If by any possibility the existence of a power superior to, and independent of, nature shall be demonstrated, there will then be time enough to kneel. Until then, let us all stand nobly erect.
118. The Old and the New Old ideas perished in the retort of the
chemist, and useful truths took their places. One by one religious conceptions have been placed in the crucible of science, and thus far, nothing but dross has been found. A new world has been discovered by the microscope; everywhere has been found the infinite; in every direction man has investigated and explored, and nowhere, in earth or stars, has been found the footstep of any being superior to or independent of nature. Nowhere has been discovered the slightest evidence of any interference from without.
119. The Triumphs of Science
I do not know what inventions are in the brain of the future; I do not know what garments of glory may be woven for the world in the loom of years to be; we are just on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. I do not know what is to be discovered; I do not know what science will do for us. I do know that science did just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; I know that science took the thunderbolts from the hands of Jupiter, and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under the waves of the sea; I know that science stole a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arms the countless wheels of toil; I know that science broke the chains from human limbs and gave us instead the forces of nature for our slaves; I know that we have made the attraction of gravitation work for us; we have made the lightnings our messengers; we have taken advantage of fire and flames and wind and sea; these slaves have no backs to be whipped; they have no hearts to be lacerated; they have no children to be stolen, no cradles to be violated. I know that science has given us better houses; I know it has given us better pictures and better books; I know it has given us better wives and better husbands, and more beautiful children. I know it has enriched a thousand-fold our life; and therefore I am in favor of perfect intellectual liberty.
120. What Science Found!
It found the world at the mercy of disease and famine; men trying to read their fates in the stars, and to tell their fortunes by signs and wonders; generals thinking to conquer their enemies by making the sign of the cross, or by telling a rosary. It found all history full of petty and ridiculous falsehood, and the Almighty was supposed to spend most of his time turning sticks into snakes, drowning boys for swimming on Sunday, and killing little children for the purpose of converting their parents. It found the earth filled with slaves and tyrants, the people in all countries downtrodden, half naked, half starved, without hope, and without reason in the world.
121. Science the only Lever
Such was the condition of man when the morning of science dawned upon his brain, and before he had heard the sublime declaration that the universe is governed by law. For the change that has taken place we are indebted solely to science—the only lever capable of raising mankind. Abject faith is barbarism; reason is civilization. To obey is slavish; to act from a sense of obligation perceived by the reason, is noble. Ignorance worships mystery; Reason explains it: the one grovels, the other soars.
SLAVERY
122. The Colonel Short of Words!!!
I have sometimes wished that there were words of pure hatred out of which I might construct sentences like snakes, out of which I might construct sentences with mouths fanged, that had forked tongues, out of which I might construct sentences that writhed and and hissed; then I could give my opinion of the rebels during the great struggle for the preservation of this nation.
123. Slavery in the Name of Religion
Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call themselves, defending the institution of slavery. When I was a little boy I used to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! I used to hear them preach to these slaves in the South and the only text they ever took was "Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was the salutation of the most merciful God to a man whose back was bleeding that was the salutation of the most merciful God to the slave-mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child had been stolen—"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the baying of blood-hounds, and when he listened for them the voice came from heaven:—"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been! Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich—there are so many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear.
124. The Patrons of Slavery
It is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors of slavery. It has left no possible wrong uncommitted, no possible crime un-perpetrated. It has been practiced and defended by all nations in some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended by nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade, churches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery has been blessed by bishop, by cardinal and by pope. It has received the sanction of statesmen, of kings, of queens. Monarchs have shared in the profits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, reciting passages of scripture in its defense, and judges have taken their portion in the name of equity and law.
125. A Colored Man in Congress
The world has changed! I have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man—once a slave—sitting in the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States. When I saw that sight, my eyes were filled with tears. I felt that we had carried out the Declaration of Independence, that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath of life into every word. I felt that our flag would float over and protect the colored man and his little children—standing straight in the sun—just the same as though he were white and worth a million!
126. The Zig-zag Strip
I have some excuses to offer for the race to which I belong. 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 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?
127. Black People have Suffered Enough
In my judgment the black people have suffered enough. They have been slaves for two hundred years. They have been owned two hundred years, and, more than all, they have been compelled to keep the company of those who owned them. Think of being compelled to keep the society of the man who is stealing from you. Think of being compelled to live with a man that stole your child from the cradle before your very eyes. Think of being compelled to live with a thief all your life, to spend your days with a white loafer, and to be under his control.
128. The History of Civilization
The history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful enfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a monarchy, the father being the monarch. The mother and children were the veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had the power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this father, thousands of years to make the condition of the wife and mother and children even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe had a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the nation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant. A strong nation robbed, plundered and took captive the weaker ones.
129. Does God Uphold Slavery?
Is there, in the civilized world, to-day, a clergyman who believes in the divinity of slavery? Does the Bible teach man to enslave his brother? If it does, is it not blasphemous to say that it is inspired of God? If you find the institution of slavery upheld in a book said to have been written by God, what would you expect to find in a book inspired by the devil? Would you expect to find that book in favor of liberty? Modern Christians, ashamed of the God of the Old Testament, endeavor now to show that slavery was neither commanded nor opposed by Jehovah.
130. Solemn Defiance
For my part, I never will, I never can, worship a God who upholds the institution of slavery. Such a God I hate and defy. I neither want his heaven, nor fear his hell.
THE WAR
131. The Soldiers of the Republic
The soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the blessings of liberty and that their children might have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they slew the monster of their time.
132. Honor to the Brave!
All honor, to the Brave! They blotted from the statute books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their fellow men. They made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen to be human, and for politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of martyrs, and from the Northern brain. They kept our country on the map of the world and our flag in heaven.
133. What Were We Fighting For?
Seven long years of war—fighting for what? For the principle that all men were created equal—a truth that nobody ever disputed except a scoundrel; nobody in the entire history of this world. No man ever denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief; never, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply that in America every man should have a right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never, never. It has been denied by kings—they were thieves. It has been denied by statesmen—they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by clergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes—they were hypocrites. What else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power is vested in the great body of the people. They make all the money; do all the work. They plow the land; cut down the forests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say what shall be done with what is produced except the producer?
134. The Revolution Consummated
The soldiers of the Republic finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced. They relighted the torch that fell from their august hands and filled the world again with light.
135. Fighting Done!—Work Begun!
The soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the girls they loved—they went back to the fields, the shops and mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled. They were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at poverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They said: "We saved the nation's life, and what is life without honor?" They worked and wrought with all of labor's sons, that every pledge the nation gave should be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a shining hand of friendship—a girdle of clasped and happy hands—around the globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now the ring and gleam of gold.
136. Manhood worth more than Gold
We say in this country manhood is worth more than gold. We say in this country that without liberty the Nation is not worth preserving. I appeal to every laboring man, and I ask him, "Is there another country on this globe where you can have your equal rights with others?" Now, then, in every country, no matter how good it is, and no matter how bad it is—in every country there is something worth preserving, and there is something that ought to be destroyed. Now recollect that every voter is in his own right a king; every voter in this country wears a crown; every voter in this country has in his hands the scepter of authority; and every voter, poor and rich, wears the purple of authority alike. Recollect it; and the man that will sell his vote is the man that abdicates the American throne.
137. Grander than Greek or Roman.
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the republic, with patriotism as taintless as the air, battled for the rights of others; for the nobility of labor; fought that mothers might own their babes; that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of patient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster made of warring States, but a Nation, sovereign, great and free. Blood was water; money, leaves, and life was common air until one flag floated over a republic without a master and without a slave.
138. Let us Drink to the Living and the Dead
The soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as the North. They made us a Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other land as insecure as snow upon volcano lips. And now let us drink to the volunteers, to those who sleep in unknown, sunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved and left—of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of return. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at want—to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue, to all who dared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives—to all the living and all the dead—to Sherman, to Sheridan and to Grant, the foremost soldiers of the world; and last, to Lincoln, whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.
139. Will the Wounds of the War be Healed?
There is still another question: "Will all the wounds of the war be healed?" I answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit, not to the dictation of the North, but to the nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They were wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them, and freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave for them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land with happy homes.
140. Saviours of the Nation
They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress, and found therein two angels clad in shining garments—nationality and liberty. The soldiers were the Saviours of the Nation. They were the liberators of men. In writing the proclamation of emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air,—when reapers sing 'mid gathered sheaves,—copied with the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with swords.
141. General Grant
When the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the insanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the question, "Will the great republic defend itself?" trembled on the lips of every lover of mankind. The North, filled with intelligence and wealth, products of liberty, marshalled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised, and calm; stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced the nation's first and last demand: "Unconditional and immediate surrender." From that moment the end was known. That utterance was the real declaration of real war and in accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great soldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion. The soldiers of the republic were not seekers after vulgar glory; they were not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of liberty.
MONEY THAT IS MONEY
142. Paper is not Money
Some people tell me that the government can impress its sovereignty on a piece of paper, and that is money. Well, if it is, what's the use of wasting it making one dollar bills? It takes no more ink and no more paper—why not make $1000 bills? Why not make $100,000,000 and all be billionaires? If the government can make money, what on earth does it collect taxes for you and me for? Why don't it make what money it wants, take the taxes out, and give the balance to us? Mr. Greenbacker, suppose the government issued $1,000,000,000 to-morrow, how would you get any of it?
143. The Debt will be paid
It will be paid. The holders of the debt have got a mortgage on a continent. They have a mortgage on the honor of the Republican party, and it is on record. Every blade of grass that grows upon this continent is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every field of bannered corn in the great, glorious West is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; all the coal put away in the ground, millions of years ago by the old miser, the sun; is a guarantee that every dollar of that debt will be paid; all the cattle on the prairies, pastures and plains, every one of them is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; every pine standing in the sombre forests of the North, waiting for the woodman's axe, is a guarantee that this debt will be paid; all the gold and silver hid in the Sierra Nevadas, waiting for the miner's pick, is a guarantee that the debt will be paid; every locomotive, with its muscles of iron and breath of flame, and all the boys and girls bending over their books at school, every dimpled child in the cradle, every good man and every good woman, and every man that votes the Republican ticket, is a guarantee that the debt will be paid.
144. 1873 to 1879!
No man can imagine, all the languages of the world cannot express, what the people of the United States suffered from 1873 to 1879. Men who considered themselves millionaires found that they were beggars; men living in palaces, supposing they had enough to give sunshine to the winter of their age, supposing they had enough to have all they loved in affluence and comfort, suddenly found that they were mendicants with bonds, stocks, mortgages, all turned to ashes in their aged, trembling hands.
The chimneys grew cold, the fires in furnaces went out, the poor families were turned adrift, and the highways of the United States were crowded with tramps. Into the home of the poor crept the serpent of temptation, and whispered in the ear of poverty the terrible word "repudiation."
145. A Voter because a Man
A man does not vote in this country simply because he is rich; he does not vote in this country simply because he has an education; he does not vote simply because he has talent or genius; we say that he votes because he is a man, and that he has his manhood to support; and we admit in this country that nothing can be more valuable to any human being than his manhood, and for that reason we put poverty on an equality with wealth.
146. Keep the Flag in Heaven!
If you are a German, recollect that this country is kinder to you than your own fatherland,—no matter what country you came from, remember that this country is an asylum, and vote as in your conscience you believe you ought to vote to keep this flag in heaven. I beg every American to stand with that part of the country that believes in law, in freedom of speech, in an honest vote, in civilization, in progress, in human liberty, and in universal justice.
147. Prosperity and Resumption hand in hand
The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that when they come they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons of toil. This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it by passing resolutions in a political convention.
148. Every Poor Man should Stand by the Government
It is the only Nation where the man clothed in a rag stands upon an equality with the one wearing purple. It is the only country in the world where, politically, the hut is upon an equality with the palace. For that reason, every poor man should stand by the government, and every poor man who does not is a traitor to the best interests of his children; every poor man who does not is willing his children should bear the badge of political inferiority; and the only way to make this government a complete and perfect success is for the poorest man to think as much of his manhood as the millionaire does of his wealth.
149. We Will Settle Pair!
I want to tell you that you cannot conceive of what the American people suffered as they staggered over the desert of bankruptcy from 1873 to 1879.
We are too near now to know how grand we were. The poor mechanic said "No;" the ruined manufacturer said "No;" the once millionaire said "No, we will settle fair; we will agree to pay whether we ever pay or not, and we will never soil the American name with the infamous word, 'repudiation.'" Are you not glad? What is the talk? Are you not glad that our flag is covered all over with financial honors? The stars shine and gleam now because they represent an honest nation.
150. A Government with a Long Arm
I believe in a Government with an arm long enough to reach the collar of any rascal beneath its flag. I want it with an arm long enough and a sword sharp enough to strike down tyranny wherever it may raise its snaky head. I want a nation that can hear the faintest cries of its humblest citizen. I want a nation that will protect a freedman standing in the sun by his little cabin, just as quick as it would protect Vanderbilt in a palace of marble and gold.
151. No Repudiation
Then it was, that the serpent of temptation whispered in the ear of want that dreadful word "Repudiation." An effort was made to repudiate. They appealed to want, to misery, to threatened financial ruin, to the bare hearthstones, to the army of beggars, We had grandeur enough to say: "No; we'll settle fair if we don't pay a cent!" And we'll pay-it. 'Twas grandeur! Is there a Democrat now who wishes we had taken the advice of Bayard to scale the bonds? Is there an American, a Democrat here, who is not glad we escaped the stench and shame of repudiation, and did not take Democratic advice? Is there a Greenbacker here who is not glad we didn't do it? He may say he is, but he isn't.
152. The Great Crash!
I think there is the greatest heroism in living for a thing! There's no glory in digging potatoes. You don't wear a uniform when you're picking up stones. You can't have a band of music when you dig potatoes! In, 1873 came the great crash. We staggered over the desert of bankruptcy. No one can estimate the anguish of that time! Millionaires found themselves paupers. Palaces were exchanged for hovels. The aged man, who had spent his life in hard labor, and who thought he had accumulated enough to support himself in his old age, and leave a little something to his children and grandchildren, found they were all beggars. The highways were filled with tramps.
153. Promises Don't Pay
If I am fortunate enough to leave a dollar when I die, I want it to be a good one; I don't wish to have it turn to ashes in the hands of widowhood, or become a Democratic broken promise in the pocket of the orphan; I want it money. I saw not long ago a piece of gold bearing the stamp of the Roman Empire. That Empire is dust, and over it has been thrown the mantle of oblivion, but that piece of gold is as good as though Julius Caesar were still riding at the head of the Roman Legion. I want money to that will outlive the Democratic party. They told us—and they were honest about it—they said, "when we have plenty of money we are prosperous." And I said: "When we are prosperous, then we have credit, and, credit inflates the currency. Whenever a man buys a pound of sugar and says, 'Charge it,' he inflates the currency; whenever he gives his note, he inflates the currency; whenever his word takes the place of money, he inflates the currency." The consequence is that when we are prosperous, credit takes the place of money, and we have what we call "plenty." But you can't increase prosperity simply by using promises to pay.
154. Solid and Bright!
I do not wish to trust the wealth of this nation with the demagogues of the nation. I do not wish to trust the wealth of the country to every blast of public opinion. I want money as solid as the earth on which we tread, as bright as the stars that shine above us.
155. The South and the Tariff
Where did this doctrine of a tariff for revenue only come from? From the South. The South would like to stab the prosperity of the North. They had rather trade with Old England than with New England. They had rather trade with the people who were willing to help them in war than those who conquered the rebellion. They knew what gave us our strength in war. They knew all the brooks and creeks and rivers in New England were putting down the rebellion. They knew that every wheel that turned, every spindle that revolved, was a soldier in the army of human progress. It won't do. They were so lured by the greed of office that they were willing to trade upon the misfortune of a nation. It won't do. I don't wish to belong to a party that succeeds only when my country falls. I don't wish to belong to a party whose banner went up with the banner of rebellion. I don't wish to belong to a party that was in partnership with defeat and disaster.
156. I am for Protection
And I will tell you why I am for protection, too. If we were all farmers we would be stupid. If we were all shoemakers we would be stupid. If we all followed one business, no matter what it was, we would become stupid. Protection to American labor diversifies American industry, and to have it diversified touches and developes every part of the human brain. Protection protects integrity; it protects intelligence; and protection raises sense; and by protection we have greater men and better-looking women and healthier children. Free trade means that our laborer is upon an equality with the poorest paid labor of this world.
157. The Old Woman of Tewksbury
You Greenbackers are like the old woman in the Tewksbury, Mass., Poor-House. She used to be well off, and didn't like her quarters. You Greenbackers have left your father's house of many mansions and have fed on shucks about long enough. The Supervisor came into the Poor-House one day and asked the old lady how she liked it. She said she didn't like the company, and asked him what he would advise her to do under similar circumstances. "Oh, you'd better stay. You're prejudiced," said he. "Do you think anybody is ever prejudiced in their sleep?" asked the old lady. "I had a dream the other night. I dreamed I died and went to Heaven. Lots of nice people were there. A nice man came to me and asked me where I was from. Says I, 'From Tewksbury, Mass.' He looked in his book and said, 'You can't stay here.' "I asked what he would advise me to do under similar circumstances." 'Well,' he said, 'there's hell down there, you might try that.' "Well, I went down there, and the men told me my name wasn't on the book and I couldn't stay there. 'Well,' said I, 'What would you advise me to do under similar circumstances?' 'Said he, 'You'll have to go back to Tewksbury.' And when Green-backers remember what they once were, you must feel now, when you were forced to join the Democratic party, as bad as the old lady who had to go back to Tewksbury.
158. American Muscle, Coined into Gold
I believe in American labor, and I tell you why. The other day a man told me that we had produced in the United States of America one million tons of rails. How much are they worth? Sixty dollars a ton. In other words, the million tons are worth $60,000,000. How much is a ton of iron worth in the ground? Twenty-five cents. American labor takes 25 cents of iron in the ground and adds to it $59.75. One million tons of rails, and the raw material not worth $24,000. We build a ship in the United States worth $500,000, and the value of the ore in the earth, of the trees in the great forest, of all that enters into the composition of that ship bringing $500,000 in gold is only $20,000; $480,000 by American labor, American muscle, coined into gold; American brains made a legal-tender the world around.
159. Inflation
I don't blame the man who wanted inflation. I don't blame him for praying for another period of inflation. "When it comes," said the man who had a lot of shrunken property on his hands, "blame me, if I don't unload, you may shoot me." It's a good deal like the game of poker! I don't suppose any of you know anything about that game! Along towards morning the fellow who is ahead always wants another deal. The fellow that is behind says his wife's sick, and he must go home. You ought to hear that fellow descant on domestic virtue! And the other fellow accuses him of being a coward and wanting to jump the game. A man whose dead wood is hung up on the shore in a dry time, wants the water to rise once more and float it out into the middle of the stream.
160. Resources of Illinois.
Let me tell you something about Illinois. We have fifty-six thousand square miles of land—nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon these plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million people. Beneath these prairies were hidden, millions of ages ago, by that old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The aggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a column of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! All this came from the sun. What a sunbeam such a column would be! Think of all this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world! Think of the fireside of the future around which will sit the fathers, mothers and children of the years to be! Think of the sweet and happy faces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred light of all these flames!
161. Money!
They say that money is a measure of value. 'Tisn't so. A bushel doesn't measure values. It measures diamonds as well as potatoes. If it measured values, a bushel of potatoes would be worth as much as a bushel of diamonds. A yard-stick doesn't measure values. They used to say, "there's no use in having a gold yard-stick." That was right. You don't buy the yard-stick. If money bore the same relation to trade as a yard-stick or half-bushel, you would have the same money when you got through trading as you had when you begun. A man don't sell half-bushels. He sells corn. All we want is a little sense about these things. We were in trouble. The thing was discussed. Some said there wasn't enough money. That's so; I know what that means myself. They said if we had more money we'd be more prosperous. The truth is, if we were more prosperous we'd have more money. They said more money would facilitate business.
162. Money by Work
How do you get your money? By work. Where from? You have got to dig it out of the ground. That is where it comes from. In old times there were some men who thought they could get some way to turn the baser metals into gold, and old gray-haired men, trembling, tottering on the verge of the grave, were hunting for something to turn ordinary metals into gold; they were searching for the fountain of eternal youth, but they did not find it. No human ear has ever heard the silver gurgle of the spring of immortal youth.
163. Meat Twice a Year
I have been in countries where the laboring man had meat once a year; sometimes twice—Christmas and Easter. And I have seen women carrying upon their heads a burden that no man would like to carry, and at the same time knitting busily with both hands. And those women lived without meat; and when I thought of the American laborer I said to myself, "After all, my country is the best in the world." And when I came back to the sea and saw the old flag flying in the air, it seemed to me as though the air from pure joy had burst into blossom.
164. America a Glorious Land
Labor has more to eat and more to wear in the United States than in any other land of this earth. I want America to produce everything that Americans need. I want it so if the whole world should declare war against us, so if we were surrounded by walls of cannon and bayonets and swords, we could supply all human wants in and of ourselves. I want to live to see the American woman dressed in American silk; the American man in everything from hat to boots produced in America by the cunning hand of the American toiler.
165. How to Spend a Dollar
If you have only a dollar in the world and have got to spend it, spend it like a man; spend it like a prince, like a king! If you have to spend it, spend it as though it were a dried leaf, and you were the owner of unbounded forests.
166. Honesty is Best always and Everywhere
I am next in favor of honest money. I am in favor of gold and silver, and paper with gold and silver behind it. I believe in silver, because it is one of the greatest of American products, and I am in favor of anything that will add to the value of American products. But I want a silver dollar worth a gold dollar, even if you make it or have to make it four feet in diameter. No government can afford to be a clipper of coin. A great Republic cannot afford to stamp a lie upon silver or gold. Honest money, an honest people, an honest Nation. When our money is only worth 80 cents on the dollar, we feel 20 per cent, below par. When our money is good we feel good. When our money is at par, that is where we are. I am a profound believer in the doctrine that for nations as well as men, honesty is the best, always, everywhere and forever.
167. A Fountain of Greenbacks
There used to be mechanics that tried to make perpetual motion by combinations of wheels, shifting weights, and rolling balls; but somehow the machine would never quite run. A perpetual fountain of greenbacks, of wealth without labor, is just as foolish as a fountain of eternal youth. The idea that you can produce money without labor is just as foolish as the idea of perpetual motion. They are old follies under new names.
168. What the Greenback says!
Shall we pay our debts? We had to borrow some money to pay for shot and shell to shoot Democrats with. We found that we could get along with a few less Democrats, but not with any less country, and so we borrowed the money, and the question now is, will we pay it? And which party is the most apt to pay it, the Republican party, that made the debt—the party that swore it was constitutional, or the party that said it was unconstitutional? Whenever a Democrat sees a greenback, the greenback says to the Democrat, "I am one of the fellows that whipped you." Whenever a Republican sees a greenback, the greenback says to him, "You and I put down the rebellion and saved the country."
169. Honest Methods
So many presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young Men's Christian Association, run off with the funds; so many railroad and insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much bankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch of fear. Slowly, but surely, we are coming back to honest methods in business. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the safe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave their hitting places, and every one will be seeking investment.
170. Silver demonetized by Fraud!
For my part I do not ask any interference on the part of the government except to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made out of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do ask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud. It was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest debtor in the United States. It assassinated labor. It was done in the interest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men.
RELIGIOUS QUESTIONS
171. The Crime of Crimes!
Redden your hands with human blood; blast by slander the fair fame of the innocent; strangle the smiling child upon its mother's knees; deceive, ruin and desert the beautiful girl who loves and trusts you, and your case is not hopeless. For all this, and for all these you may be forgiven. For all this, and for all these, that bankrupt court established by the gospel, will give you a discharge; but deny the existence of these divine ghosts, of these gods, and the sweet and tearful face of Mercy becomes livid with eternal hate. Heaven's golden gates are shut, and you, with an infinite curse ringing in your ears, with the brand of infamy upon your brow, commence your endless wanderings in the lurid gloom of hell—an immortal vagrant—an eternal outcast—a deathless convict.
172. Faith—A Mixture of Insanity and Ignorance
The doctrine that future happiness depends upon belief is monstrous. It is the infamy of infamies. The notion that faith in Christ is to be rewarded by an eternity of bliss, while a dependence upon reason, observation, and experience merits everlasting pain, is too absurd for refutation, and can be relieved only by that unhappy mixture of insanity and ignorance; called "faith."
173. What the Saints Could Cure!
The church in the days of Voltaire contended that its servants were the only legitimate physicians. The priests cured in the name of the church, and in the name of God—by exorcism, relics, water, salt and oil. St. Valentine cured epilepsy, St. Gervasius was good for rheumatism, St. Michael de Sanatis for cancer, St. Judas for coughs, St. Ovidius for deafness, St. Sebastian for poisonous bites. St. Apollonia for toothache, St. Clara for rheum in the eye, St. Hubert for hydrophobia. Devils were driven out with wax tapers, with incence (sp.), with holy water, by pronouncing prayers. The church, as late as the middle of the twelfth century, prohibited good Catholics from having anything to do with physicians.
174. The Sleep of Persecutors
All the persecutors sleep in peace, and the ashes of those who burned their brothers in the name of Christ rest in consecrated ground. Whole libraries could not contain even the names of the wretches who have filled the world with violence and death in defense of book and creed, and yet they all died the death of the righteous, and no priest or| minister describes the agony and fear, the remorse and horror with which their guilty souls were filled in the last moments of their lives. These men had never doubted; they accepted the creed; they were not infidels; they had not denied the divinity of Christ; they had been baptized; they had partaken of the last supper; they had respected priests; they admitted that the Holy Ghost had "proceeded;" and these things put pillows beneath their dying heads and covered them with the drapery of peace.
175. Crime Rampant and God Silent!
There is no recorded instance where the uplifted hand of murder has been paralyzed—no truthful account in all the literature of the world of the innocent shielded by God. Thousands of crimes are being committed every day—men are this moment lying in wait for their human prey; wives are whipped and crushed, driven to insanity and death; little children begging for mercy, lifting imploringly tear-filled eyes to the brutal faces of fathers and mothers; sweet girls are deceived, lured, and outraged; but God has no time to prevent these things—no time to defend the good and to protect the pure. He is too busy numbering hairs and watching sparrows.
176. How Criminals Die Serenely!
All kinds of criminals, except infidels, meet death with reasonable serenity. As a rule, there is nothing in the death of a pirate to cast any discredit on his profession. The murderer upon the scaffold, with a priest on either side, smilingly exhorts the multitude to meet him in heaven. The man who has succeeded in making his home a hell meets death without a quiver, provided he has never expressed any doubt as to the divinity of Christ or the eternal "procession" of the holy ghost. The king who has waged cruel and useless war, who has filled countries with widows and fatherless children, with the maimed and diseased, and who has succeeded in offering to the Moloch of ambition the best and bravest of his subjects, dies like a saint.
177. The first Corpse and the first Cathedral
Now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty has appeared. These men have denounced the superstitions of their day. They pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. These men were honest enough to tell their thoughts. Then they were denounced, condemned, executed. Some of them escaped the fury of the people who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. It would not be for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment. Religion got much of its power from the terror of death. Superstition is the child of ignorance and fear. The first grave was the first cathedral. The first corpse was the first priest. It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the Bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that Christ was only a man, and yet die as calmly as Calvin did after he had murdered Servetus, or as King David, after advising one son to kill another.
178. The Sixteenth Century
In the sixteenth century every science was regarded as an outcast and an enemy, and the church influenced the world, which was under its power, to believe anything, and the ignorant mob was always too ready, brutalized by the church, to hang, kill or crucify at their bidding. Such was the result of a few centuries of Christianity.
179. An Orthodox Gentleman
By Orthodox I mean a gentleman who is petrified in his mind, whooping around intellectually, simply to save the funeral expenses of his soul.
180. A Bold Assertion
The churches point to their decayed saints, and their crumbled Popes and say, "Do you know more than all the ministers that ever lived?" And without the slightest egotism or blush I say, yes, and the name of Humboldt outweighs them all. The men who stand in the front rank, the men who know most of the secrets of nature, the men who know most are to-day the advanced infidels of this world. I have lived long enough to see the brand of intellectual inferiority on every orthodox brain.
181. History a Bloody Farce!
If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed.
182. Weak ones Suffering—Heaven deaf
Most of the misery has been endured by the weak, the loving and the innocent. Women have been treated like poisonous beasts, and little children trampled upon as though they had been vermin. Numberless altars have been reddened, even with the blood of babes; beautiful girls have been given to slimy serpents; whole races of men doomed to centuries of slavery, and everywhere there has been outrage beyond the power of genius to express. During all these years the suffering have supplicated; the withered lips of famine have prayed; the pale victims have implored, and Heaven has been deaf and blind.
183. Heaven has no Ear, no Hand
Man should cease to expect aid from on high. By this time he should know that heaven has no ear to hear, and no hand to help. The present is the necessary child of all the past. There has been no chance, and there can be no interference.
184. Religion is Tyrannical
Religion does not, and cannot, contemplate man as free. She accepts only the homage of the prostrate, and scorns the offerings of those who stand erect. She cannot tolerate the liberty of thought. The wide and sunny fields belong not to her domain. The star-lit heights of genius and individuality are above and beyond her appreciation and power. Her subjects cringe at her feet, covered with the dust of obedience.
185. Religion and Facts
What has religion to do with facts? Nothing. Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics, Presbyterian botany, Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any science? Nothing but hinder, delay or embarass. I want, then, to free the schools; and I want to free the politicians, so that a man will not have to pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or his grandmother a Catholic; so that he can go through a campaign, and when he gets through will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his knees.
186. Religion not the End of Life
We deny that religion is the end or object of this life. When it is so considered it becomes destructive of happiness—the real end of life. It becomes a hydra-headed monster, reaching in terrible coils from the heavens, and thrusting its thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men. It devours their substance, builds palaces for God, (who dwells not in temples made with hands,) and allows his children to die in huts and hovels. It fills the earth with mourning, heaven with hatred, the present with fear, and all the future with despair.
187. Creeds
Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the Church has lost power. There is no exception to this rule. No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders. No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the Church without losing its power, its honor, and existence. Every Church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know? Every creed is a rock in running water; humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the enlightened Present.
188. The Worst Religion in the World
The worst religion of the world was the Presbyterianism of Scotland as it existed in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The kirk had all the faults of the church of Rome, without a redeeming feature. The kirk hated music, painting, statuary, and architecture. Anything touched with humanity—with the dimples of joy—was detested and accursed. God was to be feared, not loved. Life was a long battle with the devil. Every desire was of Satan. Happiness was a snare, and human love was wicked, weak, and vain. The Presbyterian priest of Scotland was as cruel, bigoted, and heartless as the familiar of the inquisition. One case will tell it all. In the beginning of this, the nineteenth century, a boy seventeen years of age, Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for blasphemy. He had on several occasions, when cold, jocularly wished himself in hell, that he might get warm. The poor, frightened boy recanted—begged for mercy; but he was found guilty, hanged, thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold; and his weeping mother vainly begged that his bruised and bleeding body might be given to her.
189. Religion Demanding Miracles
The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine—cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle—that is to say, a violation of nature—that is to say, a falsehood.
190. We Want One Fact
We have heard talk enough. We have listened to all the drowsy, idealess, vapid sermons that we wish to hear. We have read your Bible and the works of your best minds. We have heard your prayers, your solemn groans and your reverential amens. All these amount to less than nothing. We want one fact. We beg at the doors of your churches for just one little fact. We pass our hats along your pews and under your pulpits and implore you for just one fact. We know all about your mouldy wonders and your stale miracles. We want a this year's fact. We ask only one. Give us one fact for charity. Your miracles are too ancient.
191. The Design Argument
These religious people see nothing but designs everywhere, and personal, intelligent interference in everything. They insist that the universe has been created, and that the adaptation of means to ends is perfectly apparent. They point us to the sunshine, to the flowers, to the April rain, and to all there is of beauty and of use in the world. Did it ever occur to them that a cancer is as beautiful in its development as is the reddest rose? That what they are pleased to call the adaptation of means to ends, is as apparent in the cancer as in the April rain? How beautiful the process of digestion! By what ingenious methods the blood is poisoned so that the cancer shall have food! By what wonderful contrivances the entire system of man is made to pay tribute to this divine and charming cancer! See by what admirable instrumentalities it feeds itself from the surrounding quivering, dainty flesh! See how it gradually but surely expands and grows! By what marvelous mechanism it is supplied with long and slender roots that reach out to the most secret nerves of pain for sustenance and life! What beautiful colors it presents!
192. Down, Forever Down
Down, forever down, with any religion that requires upon its ignorant altar the sacrifice of the goddess Reason, that compels her to abdicate forever the shining throne of the soul, strips from her form the imperial purple, snatches from her hand the sceptre of thought and makes her the bondwoman of a senseless faith!
193. The Back
Upon this rack I have described, this victim was placed, and those chains were attached to his ankles and then to his waist, and clergyman, good men pious men! men that were shocked at the immorality of their day! they talked about playing cards and the horrible crime of dancing! Oh! how such things shocked them; men going to the theatres and seeing a play written by the grandest genius the world ever has produced—how it shocked their sublime and tender souls! but they commenced turning this machine and they kept on turning until the ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave his veins. Did they wish to save his life? Yes. In mercy? No! simply that they might have the pleasure of racking him once again. That is the spirit, and it is a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne of the universe a being who will eternally damn his children, and they said: "If God is going to have the supreme happiness of burning them forever, certainly he might not to begrudge to us the joy of burning them for an hour or two." That was their doctrine, and when I read these things it seems to me that I have suffered them myself.
194. An Awful Admission
Just think of going to the day of judgment, if there is one, and standing up before God and admitting without a blush that you had lived and died a Scotch Presbyterian. I would expect the next sentence would be, "Depart ye curged into everlasting fire."
CHURCHES AND PRIESTS
195. The Church Forbids Investigation
The first doubt was the womb and cradle of progress, and from the first doubt, man has continued to advance. Men began to investigate, and the church began to oppose. The astronomer scanned the heavens, while the church branded his grand forehead with the word, "Infidel;" and now, not a glittering star in all the vast expanse bears a Christian name. In spite of all religion, the geologist penetrated the earth, read her history in books of stone, and found, hidden within her bosom souvenirs of all the ages.
196. The Church Charges Falsely
Notwithstanding the fact that infidels in all ages have battled for the rights of man, and have at all times been the fearless advocates of liberty and justice, we are constantly charged by the Church with tearing down without building again.
197. The Church in the "Dark Ages"
During that frightful period known as the "Dark Ages," Faith reigned, with scarcely a rebellious subject. Her temples were "carpeted with knees," and the wealth of nations adorned her countless shrines. The great painters prostituted their genius to immortalize her vagaries, while the poets enshrined them in song. At her bidding, man covered the earth with blood. The scales of Justice were turned with her gold, and for her use were invented all the cunning instruments of pain. She built cathedrals for God, and dungeons for men. She peopled the clouds with angels and the earth with slaves.
198. The Few Say, "Think!"
For ages, a deadly conflict has been waged between a few brave men and women of thought and genius upon the one side, and the great ignorant religious mass on the other. This is the war between! science and faith. The few have appealed to reason, to honor, to law, to freedom, to the known, and to happiness here in this world. The many have appealed to prejudice, to fear, to miracle, to slavery, to the unknown, and to misery hereafter. The few have said, "Think!" The many have said, "Believe!"
199. The Church and the Tree of Knowledge
The gods dreaded education and knowledge then just as they do now. The church still faithfully guards the dangerous tree of knowledge, and has exerted in all ages her utmost power to keep mankind from eating the fruit thereof. The priests have never ceased repeating the old falsehood and the old threat: "Ye shall not eat of it, neither shall ye touch it, lest ye die."
200. The Church Cries, "Believe!"
The church wishes us to believe. Let the church, or one of its intellectual saints, perform a miracle, and we will believe. We are told that nature has a superior. Let this superior, for one single instant, control nature and we will admit the truth of your assertions.
201. The Heretics Cried, "Halt!"
A few infidels—a few heretics cried, "Halt!" to the great rabble of ignorant devotion, and made it possible for the genius of the nineteenth century to revolutionize the cruel creeds and superstitions of mankind.
202. The World not so Awful Flat
According to the Christian system this world was the centre of everything. The stars were made out of what little God happened to have left when he got the world done. God lived up in the sky, and they said this earth must rest upon something, and finally science passed its hand clear under, and there was nothing. It was self-existent in infinite space. Then the Church began to say they didn't say it was flat, not so awful flat—it was kind of rounding.
According to the ancient Christians God lived from all eternity, and never worked but six days in His whole life, and then had the impudence to tell us to be industrious.
203. From Whence Come Wars?
Christian nations are the warlike nations of this world. Christians have invented the most destructive weapons of war. Christianity gave us the revolver, invented the rifle, made the bombshell; and Christian nations here and there had above all other arts the art of war; and as Christians they have no respect for the rights of barbarians or for the rights of any nation or tribe that happens to differ with them. See what it does in our society; we are divided off into little sects that used to discuss these questions with fire and sword, with chain and faggot, and that discuss, some of them, even to-day, with misrepresentation and slander. Every day something happens to show me that the old spirit that that was in the inquisition still slumbers in the breasts of men.
204. Another Day of Divine Work
I heard of a man going to California over the plains, and there was a clergyman on board, and he had a great deal to say, and finally he fell in conversation with the forty-niner, and the latter said to the clergyman, "Do you believe that God made this world in six days?" "Yes I do." They were then going along the Humboldt. Says he, "Don't you think he could put in another day to advantage right around here?"
205. The Donkey and the Lion
Owing to the attitude of the churches for the last fifteen hundred years, truth-telling has not been a very lucrative business. As a rule, hypocrisy has worn the robes, and honesty the rags. That day is passing away. You cannot now answer the argument of a man by pointing at the holes in his coat. Thomas Paine attacked the Church when it was powerful—when it had what is called honors to bestow—when it was the keeper of the public conscience—when it was strong and cruel. The Church waited till he was dead, and then attacked his reputation and his clothes. Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion, but the lion was dead.
206. The Orthodox Christian
The highest type of the orthodox Christian does not forget; neither does he learn. He neither advances nor recedes. He is a living fossil embedded in that rock called faith. He makes no effort to better his condition, because all his strength is exhausted in keeping other people from improving theirs. The supreme desire of his heart is to force all others to adopt his creed, and in order to accomplish this object he denounces free-thinking as a crime, and this crime he calls heresy. When he had power, heresy was the most terrible and formidable of words. It meant confiscation, exile, imprisonment, torture, and death.
207. Alms-Dish and Sword
I will not say the Church has been an unmitigated evil in all respects. Its history is infamous and glorious. It has delighted in the production of extremes. It has furnished murderers for its own martyrs. It has sometimes fed the body, but has always starved the soul. It has been a charitable highwayman—a profligate beggar—a generous pirate. It has produced some angels and a multitude of devils. It has built more prisons than asylums. It made a hundred orphans while it cared for one. In one hand it has carried the alms-dish and in the other a sword.
208. The Church the Great Robber
The Church has been, and still is, the great robber. She has rifled not only the pockets but the brains of the world. She is the stone at the sepulchre of liberty; the upas tree, in whose shade the intellect of man has withered; the Gorgon beneath whose gaze the human heart has turned to stone. Under her influence even the Protestant mother expects to be happy in heaven, while her brave boy, who fell fighting for the rights of man, shall writhe in hell.
209. The Church Impotent
The Church, impotent and malicious, regrets, not the abuse, but the loss of her power, and seeks to hold by falsehood what she gained by cruelty and force, by fire and fear. Christianity cannot live in peace with any other form of faith.
210. Toleration
Let it be remembered that all churches have persecuted heretics to the extent of their power. Toleration has increased only when and where the power of the church has diminished. From Augustine until now the spirit of the Christians has remained the same. There has been the same intolerance, the same undying hatred of all who think for themselves, and the same determination to crush out of the human brain all knowledge inconsistent with an ignorant creed.
211. Shakespeare's Plays v. Sermons
What would the church people think if the theatrical people should attempt to suppress the churches? What harm would it do to have an opera here tonight? It would elevate us more than to hear ten thousand sermons on the worm that never dies. There is more practical wisdom in one of the plays of Shakespeare than in all the sacred books ever written. What wrong would there be to see one of those grand plays on Sunday? There was a time when the church would not allow you to cook on Sunday. You had to eat your victuals cold. There was a time they thought the more miserable you feel the better God feels.
212. Why Should the Church be Merciful?
Give any orthodox church the power, and to-day they would punish heresy with whip, and chain, and fire. As long as a church deems a certain belief essential to salvation, just so long it will kill and burn if it has the power. Why should the Church pity a man whom her God hates? Why should she show mercy to a kind and noble heretic whom her God will burn in eternal fire?
213. The Church and the Infidel.
Cathedrals and domes, and chimes and chants—temples frescoed and groined and carved, and gilded with gold—altars and tapers, and paintings of virgin and babe—censer and chalice—chasuble, paten and alb—organs, and anthems and incense rising to the winged and blest—maniple, amice and stole—crosses and crosiers, tiaras and crowns—mitres and missals and masses—rosaries, relics and robes—martyrs and saints, and windows stained as with the blood of Christ—never, never for one moment awed the brave, proud spirit of the Infidel. He knew that all the pomp and glitter had been purchased with Liberty—that priceless jewel of the soul. In looking at the cathedral he remembered the dungeon. The music of the organ was loud enough to drown the clank of fetters. He could not forget that the taper had lighted the fagot. He knew that the cross adorned the hilt of the sword, and so where others worshiped, he wept and scorned.
214. Back to Chaos
Suppose the Church could control the world today, we would go back to chaos and old night philosophy would be branded as infamous; science would again press its pale and thoughtful face against the prison bars, and round the limbs of liberty would climb the bigot's flame.
215. Infinite Impudence of the Church
Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a Church assuming to think for the human race? Who can imagine the infinite impudence of a Church that pretends to be the mouthpiece of God, and in his name threatens to inflict eternal punishment upon those who honestly reject its claims and scorn its pretensions? By what right does a man, or an organization of men, or a god, claim to hold a brain in bondage? When a fact can be demonstrated, force is unnecessary; when it cannot be demonstrated, an appeal to force is infamous. In the presence of the unknown all have an equal right to think.
216. Wanted!—A New Method
The world is covered with forts to protect Christians from Christians, and every sea is covered with iron monsters ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions upon millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of Christian warfare. There must be some other way to reform this world.
217. The Kirk of Scotland
The Church was ignorant, bloody, and relentless. In Scotland the "Kirk" was at the summit of its power. It was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of which the infamous "Kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. It would not allow shipwrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on Sunday. It sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: "The Kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy."
218. The Church Looks Back
The Church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. Religion always looks back. The Church has already reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile.
219. Diogenes
The Church used painting, music and architecture, simply to degrade mankind. But there are men that nothing can awe. There have been at all times brave spirits that dared even the gods. Some proud head has always been above the waves. In every age some Diogenes has sacrificed to all the gods. True genius never cowers, and there is always some Samson feeling for the pillars of authority.
220. The Church and War
It does seem as though the most zealous Christian must at times entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a thousand years the Church had, to a great extent, the control of the civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian nations patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their principal business is to destroy each other. More than five millions of Christians are trained, educated, and drilled to murder their fellow-christians. Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred in carrying on war against other Christians.
221. The Call to Preach
An old deacon, wishing to get rid of an unpopular preacher, advised him to give up the ministry and turn his attention to something else. The preacher replied that he could not conscientiously desert the pulpit, as he had had a "call" to the ministry. To which the deacon replied, "That may be so, but it's very unfortunate for you, that when God called you to preach, he forgot to call anybody to hear you."
222. Burning Servetus
The maker of the Presbyterian creed caused the fugitive Servetus to be arrested for blasphemy. He was tried. Calvin was his accuser. He was convicted and condemned to death by fire. On the morning of the fatal day, Calvin saw him, and Servetus, the victim, asked forgiveness of Calvin, the murderer. Servetus was bound to the stake, and the faggots were lighted. The wind carried the flames somewhat away from his body, so that he slowly roasted for hours. Vainly he implored a speedy death. At last the flames climbed round his form; through smoke and fire his murderers saw a white, heroic face. And there they watched until a man became a charred and shriveled mass. Liberty was banished from Geneva, and nothing but Presbyterianism was left.
223. Freedom for the Clergy
One of the first things I wish to do is to free the orthodox clergy. I am a great friend of theirs, and in spite of all they may say against me, I am going to do them a great and lasting service. Upon their necks are visible the marks of the collar, and upon their backs those of the lash. They are not allowed to read and think for themselves. They are taught like parrots, and the best are those who repeat, with the fewest mistakes, the sentences they have been taught. They sit like owls upon some dead limb of the tree of knowledge, and hoot the same old hoots that have been hooted for eighteen hundred years.
224. The Pulpit Weakening
There was a time when a falsehood, fulminated from the pulpit, smote like a sword; but, the supply having greatly exceeded the demand, clerical misrepresentation has at last become almost an innocent amusement. Remembering that only a few years ago men, women, and even children, were imprisoned, tortured and burned, for having expressed in an exceedingly mild and gentle way, the ideas entertained by me, I congratulate myself that calumny is now the pulpit's last resort.
225. Origin of the Priesthood
This was the origin of the priesthood. The priest pretended to stand between the wrath of the gods and the helplessness of man. He was man's attorney at the court of heaven. He carried to the invisible world a flag of truce, a protest and a request. He came back with a command, with authority and with power. Man fell upon his knees before his own servant, and the priest, taking advantage of the awe inspired by his supposed influence with the gods, made of his fellow-man a cringing hypocrite and slave.
226. The Clergy on Heaven
The clergy, however, balance all the real ills of this life with the expected joys of the next. We are assured that all is perfection in heaven—there the skies are cloudless—there all is serenity and peace. Here empires may be overthrown; dynasties may be extinguished in blood; millions of slaves may toil 'neath the fierce rays of the sun, and the cruel strokes of the lash; yet all is happiness in heaven. Pestilences may strew the earth with corpses of the loved; the survivors may bend above them in agony—yet the placid bosom of heaven is unruffled. Children may expire vainly asking for bread; babes may be devoured by serpents, while the gods sit smiling in the clouds.
227. The Parson, the Crane and the Fish
A devout clergyman sought every opportunity to impress upon the mind of his son the fact, that God takes care of all his creatures; that the falling sparrow attracts his attention, and that his loving-kindness is over all his works. Happening, one day, to see a crane wading in quest of food, the good man pointed out to his son the perfect adaptation of the crane to get his living in that manner. "See," said he, "how his legs are formed for wading! What a long slender bill he has! Observe how nicely he folds his feet when putting them in or drawing them out of the water! He does not cause the slightest ripple. He is thus enabled to approach the fish without giving them any notice of his arrival. My son," said he, "it is impossible to look at that bird without recognizing the design, as well as the goodness of God, in thus providing the means of subsistence." "Yes," replied the boy, "I think I see the goodness of God, at least so far as the crane is concerned; but, after all, father, don't you think the arrangement a little tough on the fish?"
228. Banish Me from Eden—But!
Give me the storm of tempest and action, rather than the dead calm of ignorance and faith. Banish me from Eden when you will; but first let me eat of the fruit of the tree of knowledge!
229. The Pulpit's Cry of Fear
From every pulpit comes the same cry, born of the same fear: "Lest they eat and become as gods, knowing good and evil." For this reason, religion hates science, faith detests reason, theology is the sworn enemy of philosophy, and the church with its flaming sword still guards the hated tree, and like its supposed founder, curses to the lowest depths the brave thinkers who eat and become as gods.
230. Restive Clergymen
Some of the clergy have the independence to break away, and the intellect to maintain themselves as free men, but the most are compelled to submit to the dictation of the orthodox, and the dead. They are not employed to give their thoughts, but simply to repeat the ideas of others. They are not expected to give even the doubts that may suggest themselves, but are required to walk in the narrow, verdureless path trodden by the ignorance of the past. The forests and fields on either side are nothing to them.
231. The Parson Factory at Andover
They have in Massachusetts, at a place called Andover, a kind of minister-factory; and every professor in that factory takes an oath once in every five years—that is as long as an oath will last—that not only has he not during the last five years, but so help him God, he will not during the next five years intellectually advance; and probably there is no oath he could easier keep. Since the foundation of that institution there has not been one case of perjury. They believe the same creed they first taught when the foundation stone was laid, and now when they send out a minister they brand him as hardware from Sheffield and Birmingham. And every man who knows where he was educated knows his creed, knows every argument of his creed, every book that he reads, and just what he amounts to intellectually, and knows he will shrink and shrivel.
232. A Charge to Presbyteries
Go on, presbyteries and synods, go on! Thrust the heretics out of the Church—that is to say, throw away your brains,—put out your eyes. The infidels will thank you. They are willing to adopt your exiles. Every deserter from your camp is a recruit for the army of progress. Cling to the ignorant dogmas of the past; read the 109th Psalm; gloat over the slaughter of mothers and babes; thank God for total depravity; shower your honors upon hypocrites, and silence every minister who is touched with that heresy called genius. Be true to your history. Turn out the astronomers, the geologists, the naturalists, the chemists, and all the honest scientists. With a whip of scorpions, drive them all out. We want them all.
THE BIBLE
233. Nature the True Bible
The true Bible appeals to man in the name of demonstration. It has nothing to conceal. It has no fear of being read, of being contradicted, of being investigated and understood. It does not pretend to be holy, or sacred; it simply claims to be true. It challenges the scrutiny of all, and implores every reader to verify every line for himself. It is incapable of being blasphemed. This book appeals to all the surroundings of man. Each thing that exists testifies of its perfection. The earth, with its heart of fire and crowns of snow; with its forests and plains, its rocks and seas; with its every wave and cloud; with its every leaf and bud and flower, confirms its every word, and the solemn stars, shining in the infinite abysses, are the eternal witnesses of its truth.
234. Inspiration
I will tell you what I mean by inspiration. I go and look at the sea, and the sea says something to me; it makes an impression upon my mind. That impression depends, first, upon my experience; secondly, upon my intellectual capacity. Another looks upon the same sea. He has a different brain, he has had a different experience, he has different memories and different hopes. The sea may speak to him of joy and to me of grief and sorrow. The sea cannot tell the same thing to two beings, because no two human beings have had the same experience. So, when I look upon a flower, or a star, or a painting, or a statue, the more I know about sculpture the more that statue speaks to me. The more I have had of human experience, the more I have read, the greater brain I have, the more the star says to me. In other words, nature says to me all that I am capable of understanding.
335. The 109th Psalm!
Think of a God wicked and malicious enough to inspire this prayer in the 109th Psalm. Think of one infamous enough to answer it. Had this inspired psalm been found in some temple erected for the worship of snakes, or in the possession of some cannibal king, written with blood upon the dried skins of babes, there would have been a perfect harmony between its surroundings and its sentiments.
236. I Don't Believe the Bible
Now, I read the Bible, and I find that God so loved this world that he made up his mind to damn the most of us. I have read this book, and what shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I don't believe the Bible. Had I not better say so? They say that if you do you will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it—they don't tell their honest convictions about the Bible.
237. The Bible the Real Persecutor
The Bible was the real persecutor. The Bible burned heretics, built dungeons, founded the Inquisition, and trampled upon all the liberties of men. How long, O how long will mankind worship a book? How long will they grovel in the dust before the ignorant legends of the barbaric past? How long, O how long will they pursue phantoms in a darkness deeper than death?
238. Immoralities of the Bible
The believers in the Bible are loud in their denunciation of what they are pleased to call the immoral literature of the world; and yet few books have been published containing more moral filth than this inspired word of God. These stories are not redeemed by a single flash of wit or humor. They never rise above the dull details of stupid vice. For one, I cannot afford to soil my pages with extracts from them; and all such portions of the Scriptures I leave to be examined, written upon, and explained by the clergy. Clergymen may know some way by which they can extract honey from these flowers. Until these passages are expunged from the Old Testament, it is not a fit book to be read by either old or young. It contains pages that no minister in the United States would read to his congregation for any reward whatever. There are chapters that no gentleman would read in the presence of a lady. There are chapters that no father would read to his child. There are narratives utterly unfit to be told; and the time will come when mankind will wonder that such a book was ever called inspired.
239. The Bible Stands in the Way
But as long as the Bible is considered as the work of God, it will be hard to make all men too good and pure to imitate it; and as long as it is imitated there will be vile and filthy books. The literature of our country will not be sweet and clean until the Bible ceases to be regarded as the production of a god.
240. The Bible False
In the days of Thomas Paine the Church believed and taught that every word in the Bible was absolutely true. Since his day it has been proven false in its cosmogony, false in its astronomy, false in its chronology, false in its history, and so far as the Old Testament is concerned, false in almost everything. There are but few, if any, scientific men who apprehend that the Bible is literally true. Who on earth at this day would pretend to settle any scientific question by a text from the Bible? The old belief is confined to the ignorant and zealous. The Church itself will before long be driven to occupy the position of Thomas Paine.
241. The Man I Love
I love any man who gave me, or helped to give me, the liberty I enjoy to-night. I love every man who helped put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his voice in all the ages for liberty, for a chainless body, and a fetterless brain. I love every man who has given to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who thought more of principle than he did of position. I love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for mankind.
242. Whale, Jonah and All
The best minds of the orthodox world, to-day, are endeavoring to prove the existence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor place. You are no longer asked to swallow the Bible whole, whale, Jonah and all; you are simply required to believe in God, and pay your pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who will seriously contend that Samson's strength was in his hair, or that the necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of wood into serpents. These follies have passed away.
243. Damned for Laughing at Samson
For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of scientific investigation, than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing the Bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for free thinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of Evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the Nebular Hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven?
244. The Man, Not the Book, Inspired
Now when I come to a book, for instance I read the writings of Shakespeare—Shakespeare, the greatest human being who ever existed upon this globe. What do I get out of him? All that I have sense enough to understand. I get my little cup full. Let another read him who knows nothing of the drama, who knows nothing of the impersonation of passion; what does he get from him? Very little. In other words, every man gets from a book, a flower, a star, or the sea, what he is able to get from his intellectual development and experience. Do you then believe that the Bible is a different book to every human being that receives it? I do. Can God, then, through the Bible, make the same revelation to two men? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads is the man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man and not in the book.
245. The Bible a Chain
The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the Bible. That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy. That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and schools. That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest investigation a crime. That book unmans the politician and degrades the people. That book fills the world with bigotry, hypocrisy and fear.
246. Absurd and Foolish Fables
Volumes might be written upon the infinite absurdity of this most incredible, wicked and foolish of all the fables contained in that repository of the impossible, called the Bible. To me it is a matter of amazement, that it ever was for a moment believed by any intelligent human being.
247. The Bible the Work of Man
Is it not infinitely more reasonable to say that this book is the work of man, that it is filled with mingled truth and error, with mistakes and facts, and reflects, too faithfully perhaps, the "very form and pressure of its time?" If there are mistakes in the Bible, certainly they were made by man. If there is anything contrary to nature, it was written by man. If there is anything immoral, cruel, heartless or infamous, it certainly was never written by a being worthy of the adoration of mankind.
248. Something to Admire, not Laugh at
It strikes me that God might write a book that would not necessarily excite the laughter of his children. In fact, I think it would be safe to say that a real God could produce a work that would excite the admiration of mankind.
249. An Intellectual Deformity
The man who now regards the Old Testament as, in any sense, a sacred or inspired book, is, in my judgment, an intellectual and moral deformity. There is in it so much that is cruel, ignorant, and ferocious, that it is to me a matter of amazement that it was ever thought to be the work of a most merciful Deity.
250. The Bible a Poor Product
Admitting that the Bible is the Book of God, is that his only good job? Will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the Bible? Will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as for denying the scheme of salvation? When the Bible was first written it was not believed. Had they known as much about science as we know now, that Bible would not have been written.
251. The Bible the Battle Ground of Sects
Every sect is a certificate that God has not plainly revealed his will to man. To each reader the Bible conveys a different meaning. About the meaning of this book, called a revelation, there have been ages of war, and centuries of sword and flame. If written by an infinite God, he must have known that these results must follow; and thus knowing, he must be responsible for all.
252. The Bible Childish
Paine thought the barbarities of the Old Testament inconsistent with what he deemed the real character of God. He believed that murder, massacre and indiscriminate slaughter had never been commanded by the Deity. He regarded much of the Bible as childish, unimportant and foolish. The scientific world entertains the same opinion. Paine attacked the Bible precisely in the same spirit in which he had attacked the pretensions of kings. He used the same weapons. All the pomp in the world could not make him cower. His reason knew no "Holy of Holies," except the abode of Truth.
253. Where Moses got the Pentateuch
Nothing can be clearer than that Moses received from the Egyptians the principal parts of his narrative, making such changes and additions as were necessary to satisfy the peculiar superstitions of his own people.
254. God's Letter to His Children
According to the theologians, God, the Father of us all, wrote a letter to his children. The children have always differed somewhat as to the meaning of this letter. In consequence of these honest differences, these brothers began to cut out each other's hearts. In every land, where this letter from God has been read, the children to whom and for whom it was written have been filled with hatred and malice. They have imprisoned and murdered each other, and the wives and children of each other. In the name of God every possible crime has been committed, every conceivable outrage has been perpetrated. Brave men, tender and loving women, beautiful girls, and prattling babes have been exterminated in the name of Jesus Christ.
255. Examination a Crime
The Church has burned honesty and rewarded hypocrisy. And all this, because it was commanded by a book—a book that men had been taught implicitly to believe, long before they knew one word that was in it. They had been taught that to doubt the truth of this book—to examine it, even—was a crime of such enormity that it could not be forgiven, either in this world or in the next.
256. Read the Bible—and Then!
All that is necessary, as it seems to me, to convince any reasonable person that the Bible is simply and purely of human invention—of barbarian invention—is to read it. Read it as you would any other book; think of it as you would any other; get the bandage of reverence from your eyes; drive from your heart the phantom of fear; push from the throne of your brain the cowled form of superstition—then read the Holy Bible, and you will be amazed that you ever, for one moment, supposed a being of infinite wisdom, goodness and purity, to be the author of such ignorance and such atrocity.
257. An Infallible Book Makes Slaves
Whether the Bible is false or true, is of no consequence in comparison with the mental freedom of the race. Salvation through slavery is worthless. Salvation from slavery is inestimable. As long as man believes the Bible to be infallible, that book is his master. The civilization of this century is not the child of faith, but of unbelief—the result of free thought.
258. Can a Sane Man Believe in Inspiration?
What man who ever thinks, can believe that blood can appease God? And yet our entire system of religion is based on that belief. The Jews pacified Jehovah with the blood of animals, and according to the Christian system, the blood of Jesus softened the heart of God a little, and rendered possible the salvation of a fortunate few. It is hard to conceive how any sane man can read the Bible and still believe in the doctrine of inspiration.
259. An Inspiration Test
The Bible was originally written in the Hebrew language, and the Hebrew language at that time had no vowels in writing. It was written entirely with consonants, and without being divided into chapters and verses, and there was no system of punctuation whatever. After you go home to-night write an English sentence or two with only consonants close together, and you will find that it will take twice as much inspiration to read it as it did to write it.
260. The Real Bible
The real Bible is not the work of inspired men, nor prophets, nor evangelists, nor of Christs. The real Bible has not yet been written, but is being written. Every man who finds a fact adds a word to this great book.
261. The Bad Passages in the Bible not Inspired
The bad passages in the Bible are not inspired. No God ever upheld human slavery, polygamy or a war of extermination. No God ever ordered a soldier to sheathe his sword in the breast of a mother. No God ever ordered a warrior to butcher a smiling, prattling babe. No God ever upheld tyranny. No God ever said, be subject to the powers that be. No God ever endeavored to make man a slave and woman a beast of burden. There are thousands of good passages in the Bible. Many of them are true.
There are in it wise laws, good customs, some lofty and splendid things. And I do not care whether they are inspired or not, so they are true. But what I do insist upon is that the bad is not inspired.
262. Too much Pictorial
There is no hope for you. It is just as bad to deny hell as it is to deny heaven. Prof. Swing says the Bible is a poem. Dr. Ryder says it is a picture. The Garden of Eden is pictorial; a pictorial snake and a pictorial woman, I suppose, and a pictorial man, and may be it was a pictorial sin. And only a pictorial atonement!
263. One Plow worth a Million Sermons
Man must learn to rely upon himself. Reading Bibles will not protect him from the blasts of winter, but houses, fire and clothing will. To prevent famine one plow is worth a million sermons, and even patent medicines will cure more diseases than all the prayers uttered since the beginning of the world.
INFIDELS
264. The Infidels of 1776
By the efforts of these infidels—Paine, Jefferson and Franklin—the name of God was left out of the Constitution of the United States. They knew that if an infinite being was put in, no room would be left for the people. They knew that if any church was made the mistress of the state, that mistress, like all others, would corrupt, weaken, and destroy. Washington wished a church, established by law, in Virginia. He was prevented by Thomas Jefferson. It was only a little while ago that people were compelled to attend church by law in the Eastern States, and taxes were raised for the support of churches the same as for the construction of highways and bridges. The great principle enunciated in the Constitution has silently repealed most of these laws. In the presence of this great instrument the constitutions of the States grew small and mean, and in a few years every law that puts a chain upon the mind, except in Delaware, will be repealed, and for these our children may thank the infidels of 1776.
265. The Legitimate Influence of Religion
Religion should have the influence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its justice, its charity, its reason and its argument give it, and no more. Religion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has, and no more.
266. Infidels the Flowers of the World
The infidels have been the brave and thoughtful men; the flower of all the world; the pioneers and heralds of the blessed day of liberty and love; the generous spirits of the unworthy past; the seers and prophets of our race; the great chivalric souls, proud victors on the battle-fields of thought, the creditors of all the years to be.
267. The Noblest Sons of, Earth
Who at the present day can imagine the courage, the devotion to principle, the intellectual and moral grandeur it once required to be an infidel, to brave the Church, her racks, her fagots, her dungeons, her tongues of fire—to defy and scorn her heaven and her hell—her devil and her God? They were the noblest sons of earth. They were the real saviors of our race, the destroyers of superstition, and the creators of Science. They were the real Titans who bared their grand foreheads to all the thunderbolts of all the gods.
268. How Ingersoll became an Infidel
I may say right here that the Christian idea that any God can make me His friend by killing mine is about as great a mistake as could be made. They seem to have the idea that just as soon as God kills all the people that a person loves, he will then begin to love the Lord. What drew my attention first to these questions was the doctrine of eternal punishment. This was so abhorrent to my mind that I began to hate the book in which it was taught. Then, in reading law, going back to find the origin of laws, I found one had to go but a little way before the legislator and priest united. This led me to study a good many of the religions of the world. At first I was greatly astonished to find most of them better than ours. I then studied our own system to the best of my ability, and found that people were palming off upon children and upon one another as the inspired words of God a book that upheld slavery, polygamy, and almost every other crime. Whether I am right or wrong, I became convinced that the Bible is not an inspired book, and then the only question for me to settle was as to whether I should say what I believed or not. This realty was not the question in my mind, because, before even thinking of such a question, I expressed my belief, and I simply claim that right, and expect to exercise it as long as I live. I may be damned for it in the next world, but it is a great source of pleasure to me in this.
269. Why Should Infidels Die in Fear?
Why should it be taken for granted that the men who devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellowmen should have been hissed at in the hour of death by the snakes of conscience, while men who defended slavery—practiced polygamy—justified the stealing of babes from the breasts of mothers, and lashed the naked back of unpaid labor, are supposed to have passed smilingly from earth to the embraces of the angels? Why should we think that the brave thinkers, the investigators, the honest men must have left the crumbling shore of time in dread and fear, while the instigators of the massacre of St. Bartholomew, the inventors and users of thumb screws, of iron boots and racks, the burners and tearers of human flesh, the stealers, the whippers, and the enslavers of men, the buyers and beaters of maidens, mothers, and babes, the founders of the inquisition, the makers of chains, the builders of dungeons, the calumniators of the living, the slanderers of the dead, and even the murderers of Jesus Christ, all died in the odor of sanctity, with white, forgiven hands folded upon the breasts of peace, while the destroyers of prejudice, the breakers of fetters, the creators of light, died surrounded by the fierce fiends of God?
270. Infidelity is Liberty
Infidelity is liberty; all religion is slavery. In every creed man is the slave of God—woman is the slave of man and the sweet children are the slaves of all. We do not want creeds; we want knowledge—we want happiness.
271. The World in Debt to Infidels
What would the world be if infidels had never been? Let us be honest. Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as much as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work for the civilization of the world as Diderot and Voltaire? Did all the ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as David Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests, bishops, cardinals, and popes, from the day of Pentecost to the last election, done as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine?
272. Infidels the Pioneers of Progress
The history of intellectual progress is written in the lives of infidels. Political rights have been preserved by traitors—the liberty of the mind by heretics. To attack the king was treason—to dispute the priest was blasphemy. The sword and cross were allies. They defended each other. The throne and the altar were twins—vultures from the same egg. It was James I. who said: "No bishop, no king." He might have said: "No cross, no crown." The king owned the bodies, and the priest the souls, of men. One lived on taxes, the other on alms. One was a robber, the other a beggar. These robbers and beggars controlled two worlds. The king made laws, the priest made creeds. With bowed backs the people received the burdens of the one, and, with wonder's open mouth, the dogmas of the other. If any aspired to be free, they were slaughtered by the king, and every priest was a Herod who slaughtered the children of the brain. The king ruled by force, the priest by fear, and both by both. The king said to the people: "God made you peasants, and He made me king. He made rags and hovels for you, robes and palaces for me. Such is the justice of God." And the priest said: "God made you ignorant and vile. He made me holy and wise. If you do not obey me, God will punish you here and torment you hereafter. Such is the mercy of God."
273. Infidels the Great Discoverers
Infidels are the intellectual discoverers. They sail the unknown seas, and in the realms of thought they touch the shores of other worlds. An infidel is the finder of a new fact—one who in the mental sky has seen another star. He is an intellectual capitalist, and for that reason excites the envy of theological paupers.
274. The Altar of Reason
Virtue is a subordination, of the passions to the intellect. It is to act in accordance with your highest convictions. It does not consist in believing, but in doing. This is the sublime truth that the Infidels in all ages have uttered. They have handed the torch from one to the other through all the years that have fled. Upon the altar of reason they have kept the sacred fire, and through the long midnight of faith they fed the divine flame.
GODS AND DEVILS
275. Every Nation has Created a God
Each nation has created a God, and the God has always resembled his creators. He hated and loved what they hated and loved. Each God was intensely patriotic, and detested all nations but his own. All these gods demanded praise, flattery and worship. Most of them were pleased with sacrifice, and the smell of innocent blood has ever been considered a divine perfume. All these gods have insisted on having a vast number of priests, and the priests have always insisted upon being supported by the people; and the principle business of these priests has been to boast that their God could easily vanquish all the other gods put together.
276. Gods with Back-Hair
Man, having always been the physical superior of woman, accounts for the fact that most of the high gods have been males. Had women been the physical superior; the powers supposed to be the rulers of Nature would have been woman, and instead of being represented in the apparel of man, they would have luxuriated in trains, low-necked dresses, laces and back-hair.
277. Creation the Decomposition of the Infinite
Admitting that a god did create the universe, the question then arises, of what did he create it? It certainly was not made of nothing. Nothing, considered in the light of a raw material, is a most decided failure. It follows, then, that the god must have made the universe out of himself, he being the only existence. The universe is material, and if it was made of god, the god must have been material. With this very thought in his mind, Anaximander of Miletus, said: "Creation is the decomposition of the infinite."
278. The Gods Are as the People Are
No god was ever in advance of the nation that created him. The negroes represented their deities with black skins and curly hair: The Mongolian gave to his a yellow complexion and dark almond-shaped eyes. The Jews were not allowed to paint theirs, or we should have seen Jehovah with a full beard, an oval face, and an aquiline nose. Zeus was a perfect Greek, and Jove looked as though a member of the Roman senate. The gods of Egypt had the patient face and placid look of the loving people who made them. The gods of northern countries were represented warmly clad in robes of fur; those of the tropics were naked. The gods of India were often mounted upon elephants; those of some islanders were great swimmers, and the deities of the Arctic zone were passionately fond of whale's blubber.
279. Gods Shouldn't Make Mistakes
Generally the devotee has modeled them after himself, and has given them hands, heads, feet, eyes, ears, and organs of speech. Each nation made its gods and devils not only speak its language, but put in their mouths the same mistakes in history, geography, astronomy, and in all matters of fact, generally made by the people.
280. Miracles
No one, in the world's whole history, ever attempted to substantiate a truth by a miracle. Truth scorns the assistance of miracle. Nothing but falsehood ever attested itself by signs and wonders. No miracle ever was performed, and no sane man ever thought he had performed one, and until one is performed, there can be no evidence of the existence of any power superior to, and independent of nature.
281. Plenty of Gods on Hand
Man has never been at a loss for gods. He has worshipped almost everything, including the vilest and most disgusting beasts. He has worshipped fire, earth, air, water, light, stars, and for hundreds, of ages prostrated himself before enormous snakes. Savage tribes often make gods of articles they get from civilized people. The Todas worship a cowbell. The Kodas worship two silver plates, which they regard as husband and wife, and another tribe manufactured a god out of a king of hearts.
282. The Devil Difficulty
In the olden times the existence of devils was universally admitted. The people had no doubt upon that subject, and from such belief it followed as a matter of course, that a person, in order to vanquish these devils, had either to be a god, or to be assisted by one. All founders of religions have established their claims to divine origin by controlling evil spirits, and suspending the laws of nature. Casting out devils was a certificate of divinity. A prophet, unable to cope with the powers of darkness, was regarded with contempt. The utterance of the highest and noblest sentiments, the most blameless and holy life, commanded but little respect, unless accompanied by power to work miracles and command spirits.
283. Was the Devil an Idiot?
The Christians now claim that Jesus was God. If he was God, of course the devil knew that fact, and yet, according to this account, the devil took the omnipotent God and placed him upon a pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to induce him, to dash himself against the earth. Failing in that, he took the creator, owner and governor of the universe up into an exceeding high mountain, and offered him this world—this grain of sand—if he, the God of all the worlds, would fall down and worship him, a poor devil, without even a tax title to one foot of dirt! Is it possible the devil was such an idiot? Should any great credit be given to this deity for not being caught with such chaff? Think of it! The devil—the prince of sharpers—the king of cunning—the master of finesse, trying to bribe God with a grain of sand that belonged to God!
284. Industrious Deities
Few nations have been so poor as to have but one god. Gods were made so easily, and the raw material cost so little, that generally the god market was fairly glutted, and heaven crammed with these phantoms. These gods not only attended to the skies, but were supposed to interfere in all the affairs of men. They presided over everybody and everything. They attended to every department. All was supposed to be under their immediate control. Nothing was too small—nothing too large; the falling of sparrows and the motions of the planets were alike attended to by these industrious and observing deities.
285. God in Idleness
If a god created the universe, then, there must have been a time when he commenced to create. Back of that time there must have been an eternity, during which there had existed nothing—absolutely nothing—except this supposed god. According to this theory, this god spent an eternity, so to speak, in an infinite vacuum, and in perfect idleness.
286. Fancy a Devil Drowning a World
One of these gods, according to the account, drowned an entire world, with the exception of eight persons. The old, the young, the beautiful and the helpless were remorselessly devoured by the shoreless sea. This, the most fearful tragedy that the imagination of ignorant priests ever conceived, was the act, not of a devil, but of a god, so-called, whom men ignorantly worship unto this day. What a stain such an act would leave upon the character of a devil!
287. Some Gods Very Particular About Little Things
From their starry thrones they frequently came to the earth for the purpose of imparting information to man. It is related of one that he came amid thunderings and lightnings in order to tell the people that they should not cook a kid in its mother's milk. Some left their shining abodes to tell women that they should, or should not, have children, to inform a priest how to cut and wear his apron, and to give directions as to the proper manner of cleaning the intestines of a bird.
288 The Gods of To-day the Scorn of To-morrow
Nations, like individuals, have their periods of youth, of manhood and decay. Religions are the same. The same inexorable destiny awaits them all. The gods created by the nations must perish with their creators. They were created by men, and like men, they must pass away. The deities of one age are the by-words of the next.
289. No Evidence of a God in Nature
The best minds, even in the religious world, admit that in the material nature there is no evidence of what they are pleased to call a god. They find their evidence in the phenomena of intelligence, and very innocently assert that intelligence is above, and in fact, opposed to nature. They insist that man, at least, is a special creation; that he has somewhere in his brain a divine spark, a little portion of the "Great First Cause." They say that matter cannot produce thought; but that thought can produce matter. They tell us that man has intelligence, and therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his. Why not say, God has intelligence, therefore there must be an intelligence greater than his? So far as we know, there is no intelligence apart from matter. We cannot conceive of thought, except as produced within a brain.
290. Great Variety in Gods
Gods have been manufactured after numberless models., and according to the most grotesque fashions. Some have a thousand arms, some a hundred heads, some are adorned with necklaces of living snakes, some are armed with clubs, some with sword and shield, some with bucklers, and some have wings as a cherub; some were invisible, some would show themselves entire, and some would only show their backs; some were jealous, some were foolish, some turned themselves into men, some into swans, some into bulls, some into doves, and some into Holy-Ghosts, and made love to the beautiful daughters of men: Some were married—all ought to have been—and some were considered as old bachelors from all eternity. Some had children, and the children were turned into gods and worshiped as their fathers had been. Most of these gods were revengeful, savage, lustful, and ignorant. As they generally depended upon their priests for information, their ignorance can hardly excite our astonishment.
291. God Grows Smaller
"But," says the religionist, "you cannot explain everything; and that which you cannot explain, that which you do not comprehend, is my God." We are explaining more every day. We are understanding more every day; consequently your God is growing smaller every day.
292. Give the Devil His Due
If the account given in Genesis is really true, ought we not, after all, to thank this serpent? He was the first schoolmaster, the first advocate of learning, the first enemy of ignorance, the first to whisper in human ears the sacred word liberty, the creator of ambition, the author of modesty, of inquiry, of doubt, of investigation, of progress and of civilization.
293. Casting out Devils
Even Christ, the supposed son of God, taught that persons were possessed of evil spirits, and frequently, according to the account, gave proof of his divine origin and mission by frightening droves of devils out of his unfortunate countrymen. Casting out devils was his principal employment, and the devils thus banished generally took occasion to acknowledge him as the true Messiah; which was not only very kind of them, but quite fortunate for him.
294. On the Horns of a Dilemma
The history of religion is simply the story of man's efforts in all ages to avoid one of two great powers, and to pacify the other. Both powers have inspired little else than abject fear. The cold, calculating sneer of the devil, and the frown of God, were equally terrible. In any event, man's fate was to be arbitrarily fixed forever by an unknown power superior to all law, and to all fact.
295. The Devil and the Swine
How are you going to prove a miracle? How would you go to work to prove that the devil entered into a drove of swine? Who saw it, and who would know a devil if he did see him?
296. How can I assist God?
Some tell me that it is the desire of God that I should worship Him? What for? That I should sacrifice something to Him? What for? Is he in want? Can I assist Him? If he is in want and I can assist Him and will not, I would be an ingrate and an infamous wretch. But I am satisfied that I cannot by any possibility assist the infinite. Whom can I assist? My fellow men. I can help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, enlighten ignorance. I can help at least, in some degree, toward covering this world with a mantle of joy I may be wrong, but I do not believe that there is any being in this universe who gives rain for praise, who gives sunshine for prayer, or who blesses a man simply because he kneels.
297. Can God be Improved?
If the infinite "Father" allows a majority of his children to live in ignorance and wretchedness now, what evidence is there that he will ever improve their condition? Will God have more power? Will he become more merciful? Will his love for his poor creatures increase? Can the conduct of infinite wisdom, power and love ever change? Is the infinite capable of any improvement whatever?
298. That Dreadful Apple!
According to the theologians, God prepared this globe expressly for the habitation of his loved children, and yet he filled the forests with ferocious beasts; placed serpents in every path; stuffed the world with earthquakes, and adorned its surface with mountains of flame. Notwithstanding all this, we are told that the world is perfect; that it was created by a perfect being, and is therefore necessarily perfect. The next moment, these same persons will tell us that the world was cursed; covered with brambles, thistles and thorns, and that man was doomed to disease and death, simply because our poor, dear mother ate an apple contrary to the command of an arbitrary God.
299. The Devils better than the Gods
Our ancestors not only had their God-factories, but they made devils as well. These devils were generally disgraced and fallen gods. These devils generally sympathized with man. In nearly all the theologies, mythologies and religions, the devils have been much more humane and merciful than the gods. No devil ever gave one of his generals an order to kill children and to rip open the bodies of pregnant women. Such barbarities were always ordered by the good gods! The pestilences were sent by the most merciful gods! The frightful famine, during which the dying child with pallid lips sucked the withered bosom of a dead mother, was sent by the loving gods. No devil was ever charged with such fiendish brutality.
300. Is it Possible?
Is it possible that an infinite God created this world simply to be the dwelling-place of slaves and serfs? simply for the purpose of raising orthodox Christians? That he did a few miracles to astonish them; that all the evils of life are simply his punishments, and that he is finally going to turn heaven into a kind of religious museum filled with Baptist barnacles, petrified Presbyterians and Methodist mummies? I want no heaven for which I must give my reason; no happiness in exchange for my liberty, and no immortality that demands the surrender of my individuality. Better rot in the windowless tomb, to which there is no door but the red mouth of the pallid worm, than wear the jeweled collar even of a god.
301. It is Impossible!
It is impossible to conceive of a more thoroughly despicable, hateful, and arrogant being, than the Jewish god. He is without a redeeming feature. In the mythology of the world he has no parallel. He, only, is never touched by agony and tears. He delights only in blood and pain. Human affections are naught to him. He cares neither for love nor music, beauty nor joy. A false friend, an unjust judge, a braggart, hypocrite, and tyrant. Compared with Jehovah, Pharaoh was a benefactor, and the tyranny of Egypt was freedom to those who suffered the liberty of God.
HEAVEN AND HELL
302. Hope of a Future Life
For my part I know nothing of any other state of existence, either before or after this, and I have never become personally acquainted with anybody who did. There may be another life, and if there is the best way to prepare for it is by making somebody happy in this. God certainly cannot afford to put a man in hell who has made a little heaven in this world. I hope there is another life. I would like to see how things come out in this world when I am dead. There are some people I should like to see again, but if there is no other life I shall never know it.
303. I am Immortal
So far as I am concerned I am immortal; that is to say, I can't recollect when I did not exist, and there never will be a time when I will remember that I do not exist. I would like to have several millions of dollars, and I may say I have a lively hope that some day I may be rich; but to tell you the truth I have very little evidence of it. Our hope of immortality does not come from any religions, but nearly all religions come from that hope. The Old Testament, instead of telling us that we are immortal, tells us how we lost immortality. You will recollect that if Adam and Eve could have gotten to the tree of life, they would have eaten of its fruit and would have lived forever; but for the purpose of preventing immortality God turned them out of the Garden of Eden, and put certain angels with swords or sabres at the gate to keep them from getting back. The Old Testament proves, if it proves anything, which I do not think it does, that there is no life after this; and the New Testament is not very specific on the subject. There were a great many opportunities for the Savior and his apostles to tell us about another world, but they didn't improve them to any great extent; and the only evidence so far as I know about another life is, first, that we have no evidence; and, secondly, that we are rather sorry that we have not, and wish we had. That is about my position.
304. What if Death Does End All?
And suppose, after all, that death does end all. Next to eternal joy, next to being forever with those we love and those who have loved us, next to that is to be wrapped in the dreamless drapery of eternal peace. Next to eternal life is eternal death. Upon the shadowy shore of death the sea of trouble casts no wave. Eyes that have been curtained by the everlasting dark will never know again the touch of tears. Lips that have been touched by the eternal silence will never utter another word of grief. Hearts of dust do not break. The dead do not weep. And I had rather think of those I have loved, and those I have lost, as having returned to earth, as having become a part of the elemental wealth of the the world. I would rather think of them as unconscious dust. I would rather think of them as gurgling in the stream, floating in the cloud, bursting into light upon the shores of worlds. I would rather think of them thus than to have even a suspicion that their souls had been clutched by an orthodox God.
305. The Old World Ignorant of Destiny
Moses differed from most of the makers of sacred books by his failure to say anything of a future life, by failing to promise heaven, and to threaten hell. Upon the subject of a future state, there is not one word in the Pentateuch. Probably at that early day God did not deem it important to make a revelation as to the eternal destiny of man. He seems to have thought that he could control the Jews, at least, by rewards and punishments in this world, and so he kept the frightful realities of eternal joy and torment a profound secret from the people of his choice. He thought it far more important to tell the Jews their origin than to enlighten them as to their destiny.
306. Where the Doctrine of Hell was born
I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born in the yelping and howling and growling and snarling of wild beasts. I believe it was born in the grin of hyenas and in the malicious clatter of depraved apes. I despise it, I defy it, and I hate it; and when the great ship freighted with the world goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of pushing from my breast my wife and children and paddling off in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with those I love and with those who love me. I will go down with the ship and with my race. I will go where there is sympathy. I will go with those I love. Nothing can make me believe that there is any being that is going to burn and torment and damn his children forever.
307. The Grand Companionships of Hell
Since hanging has got to be a means of grace, I would prefer hell. I had a thousand times rather associate with the pagan philosophers than with the inquisitors of the middle ages. I certainly should prefer the worst man in Greek or Roman history to John Calvin, and I can imagine no man in the world that I would not rather sit on the same bench with than the puritan fathers and the founders of orthodox churches. I would trade off my harp any minute for a seat in the other country. All the poets will be in perdition, and the greatest thinkers, and, I should think, most of the women whose society would tend to increase the happiness of man, nearly all the painters, nearly all the sculptors, nearly all the writers of plays, nearly all the great actors, most of the best musicians, and nearly all the good fellows—the persons who know good stories, who can sing songs, or who will loan a friend a dollar. They will mostly all be in that country, and if I did not live there permanently, I certainly would want it so I could spend my winter months there.
308. Horror of Horrors!
Let me put one case and I will be through with this branch of the subject. A husband and wife love each other. The husband is a good fellow and the wife a splendid woman. They live and love each other and all at once he is taken sick, and they watch day after day and night after night around his bedside until their property is wasted and finally she has to go to work, and she works through eyes blinded with tears, and the sentinel of love watches at the bedside of her prince, and at the least breath or the least motion she is awake; and she attends him night after night and day after day for years, and finally he dies, and she has him in her arms and covers his wasted face with the tears of agony and love. He is a believer and she is not. He dies, and she buries him and puts flowers above his grave, and she goes there in the twilight of evening and she takes her children, and tells her little boys and girls through her tears how brave and how true and how tender their father was, and finally she dies and goes to hell, because she was not a believer; and he goes to the battlements of heaven and looks over and sees the woman who loved him with all the wealth of her love, and whose tears made his dead face holy and sacred, and he looks upon her in the agonies of hell without having his happiness diminished in the least. With all due respect to everybody I say, damn any such doctrine as that.
309. The Drama of Damnation
When you come to die, as you look back upon the record of your life, no matter how many men you have wrecked and ruined, and no matter how many women you have deceived and deserted—all that may be forgiven you; but if you recollect that you have laughed at God's book you will see through the shadows of death, the leering looks of fiends and the forked tongues of devils. Let me show you how it will be. For instance, it is the day of judgment. When the man is called up by the recording secretary, or whoever does the cross-examining, he says to his soul: "Where are you from?" "I am from the world." "Yes, sir. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I don't like to talk about myself." "But you have to. What kind of a man were you?" "Well, I was a good fellow; I loved my wife; I loved my children. My home was my heaven; my fireside was my paradise, and to sit there and see the lights and shadows falling on the faces of those I love, that to me was a perpetual joy. I never gave one of them a solitary moment of pain. I don't owe a dollar in the world, and I left enough to pay my funeral expenses and keep the wolf of want from the door of the house I loved. That is the kind of a man I am." "Did you belong to any church?" "I did not. They were too narrow for me. They were always expecting to be happy simply because somebody else was to be damned." "Well, did you believe that rib story?" "What rib story? Do you mean that Adam and Eve business? No, I did not. To tell you the God's truth, that was a little more than I could swallow." "To hell with him! Next. Where are you from?" "I'm from the world, too." "Do you belong to any church?" "Yes, sir, and to the Young Men's Christian Association." "What is your business?" "Cashier in a bank." "Did you ever run off with any of the money?" "I don't like to tell, sir." "Well, but you have to." "Yes, sir; I did."
"What kind of a bank did you have?" "A savings bank." "How much did you run off with?" "One hundred thousand dollars." "Did you take anything else along with you?" "Yes, sir." "What?" "I took my neighbor's wife." "Did you have a wife and children of your own?" "Yes, sir." "And you deserted them?" "Oh, yes; but such was my confidence in God that I believed he would take care of them." "Have you heard of them since?" "No, sir." "Did you believe that rib story?" "Ah, bless your soul, yes! I believed all of it, sir; I often used to be sorry that there were not harder stories yet in the Bible, so that I could show what my faith could do." "You believed it, did you?" "Yes, with all my heart." "Give him a harp."
310. Annihilation rather than be a God
No God has a right to make a man he intends to drown. Eternal wisdom has no right to make a poor investment, no right to engage in a speculation that will not finally pay a dividend. No God has a right to make a failure, and surely a man who is to be damned forever is not a conspicuous success. Yet upon love's breast, the Church has placed that asp; around the child of immortality the Church has coiled the worm that never dies. For my part I want no heaven, if there is to be a hell. I would rather be annihilated than be a god and know that one human soul would have to suffer eternal agony.
311. "All that have Red Hair shall be Damned."
I admit that most Christians are honest—always have admitted it. I admit that most ministers are honest, and that they are doing the best they can in their way for the good of mankind; but their doctrines are hurtful; they do harm in the world; and I am going to do what I can against their doctrines. They preach this infamy: "He that believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." Every word of that text has been an instrument of torture; every letter in that text has been a sword thrust into the bleeding and quivering heart of man; every letter has been a dungeon; every line has been a chain; and that infamous sentence has covered this world with blood. I deny that "whoso believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned." No man can control his belief; you might as well say, "All that have red hair shall be damned."