Ingersollia Part 40

ORIENT PEARLS AS RANDOM STRUNG

I do not believe that Christians are as bad as their creeds.

The highest crime against a creed is to change it. Reformation is treason.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a free-thinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.

All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position.

The heretics have not thought and suffered and died in vain. Every heretic has been, and is, a ray of light.

No man ever seriously attempted to reform a Church without being cast out and hunted down by the hounds of hypocrisy.

After all, the poorest bargain that a human being can make, is to give his individuality for what is called respectability.

On every hand are the enemies of individuality and mental freedom.

Custom meets us at the cradle and leaves us only at the tomb.

There can be nothing more utterly subversive of all that is really valuable than the suppression of honest thought.

No man, worthy of the form he bears, will at the command of Church or State solemnly repeat a creed his reason scorns.

Although we live in what is called a free government,--and politically we are free,--there is but little religious liberty in America.

According to orthodox logic, G.o.d having furnished us with imperfect minds, has a right to demand a perfect result.

Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself.

When women reason, and babes sit in the lap of philosophy, the victory of reason over the shadowy host of darkness will be complete.

Of all the religions that have been produced by the egotism, the malice, the ignorance and ambition of man, Presbyterianism is the most hideous.

And what man who really thinks can help repeating the words of Ennius: "If there are G.o.ds they certainly pay no attention to the affairs of man."

Events, like the pendulum of a clock have swung forward and backward, but after all, man, like the hands, has gone steadily on. Man is growing grander.

In spite of Church and dogma, there have been millions and millions of men and women true to the loftiest and most generous promptings of the human heart.

I was taught to hate Catholicism with every drop of my blood, it is only justice to say, that in all essential particulars it is precisely the same as every other religion.

Wherever brave blood has been shed, the sword of the Church has been wet. On every chain has been the sign of the cross. The altar and throne have leaned against and supported each other.

We have all been taught by the Church that nothing is so well calculated to excite the ire of the Deity as to express a doubt as to his existence, and that to deny it is an unpardonable sin.

Universal obedience is universal stagnation; disobedience is one of the conditions of progress. Select any age of the world and tell me what would have been the effect of implicit obedience.

We have no national religion, and no national G.o.d; but every citizen is allowed to have a religion and a G.o.d of his own, or to reject all religions and deny the existence of all G.o.ds.

Whatever may be the truth upon any subject has nothing to do with our right to investigate that subject, and express any opinion we may form.

All that I ask, is the same right I freely accord to all others.

Mental slavery is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense, every church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph.

Think of reading the 109th Psalm to a heathen who has a Bible of his own in which is found this pa.s.sage: "Blessed is the man and beloved of all the G.o.ds, who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid."

The trouble with most people is, they bow to what is called authority; they have a certain reverence for the old because it is old. They think a man is better for being dead, especially if he has been dead a long time.

We should all remember that to be like other people is to be unlike ourselves, and that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile imitation. The great trouble with imitation is, that we are apt to ape those who are in reality far below us.

Suppose the Church had had absolute control of the human mind at any time, would not the words liberty and progress have been blotted from human speech? In defiance of advice, the world has advanced.

Over every fortress of tyranny has waved, and still waves, the banner of the Church.

The Church has won no victories for the rights of man.

We have advanced in spite of religious zeal, ignorance, and opposition.

Luther labored to reform the Church--Voltaire, to reform men.

There have been, and still are, too many men who own themselves--too much thought, too much knowledge for the Church to grasp again the sword of power. The Church must abdicate. For the Eg-lon of superst.i.tion Science has a message from Truth.

It is a blessed thing that in every age some one has had individuality enough and courage enough to stand by his own convictions,--some one who had the grandeur to say his say. I believe it was Magellan who said.

"The Church says the earth is flat; but I have seen its shadow on the moon, and I have more confidence even in a shadow than in the Church."

"On the prow of his s.h.i.+p were disobedience, defiance, scorn, and success.

INGERSOLL'S ORATION AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE

A Tribute to Ebon C. Ingersoll, by his Brother Robert--The Record of a Generous Life Runs Like a Vine Around the Memory of our Dead, and Every Sweet, Unselfish Act is Now a Perfumed Flower.

Dear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would do for me.

The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where manhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were falling toward the west.

He had not pa.s.sed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest point; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and, using his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured with the world, he pa.s.sed to silence and pathetic dust.

Yet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a sunken s.h.i.+p For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther sh.o.r.e, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every life, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment jeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep and dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.

This brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but in the suns.h.i.+ne he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed the heights, and left all superst.i.tions far below, while on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.

He loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to tears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly gave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully discharged all public trusts.

He was a wors.h.i.+per of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: "For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer." He believed that happiness was the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only wors.h.i.+p, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of sweet flowers.