The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VII Part 5

Allow me to give you another instance of affection related in the Scriptures. There was, it seems, a most excellent man by the name of Job. The Lord was walking up and down, and happening to meet Satan, said to him: "Are you acquainted with my servant Job? Have you noticed what an excellent man he is?" And Satan replied to him and said: "Why should he not be an excellent man--you have given him everything he wants? Take from him what he has and he will curse you." And thereupon the Lord gave Satan the power to destroy the property and children of Job. In a little while these high contracting parties met again; and the Lord seemed somewhat elated with his success, and called again the attention of Satan to the sinlessness of Job. Satan then told him to touch his body and he would curse him. And thereupon power was given to Satan over the body of Job, and he covered his body with boils. Yet in all this, Job did not sin with his lips.

This book seems to have been written to show the excellence of patience, and to prove that at last G.o.d will reward all who will bear the afflictions of heaven with fort.i.tude and without complaint. The sons and daughters of Job had been slain, and then the Lord, in order to reward Job, gave him other children, other sons and other daughters--not the same ones he had lost; but others. And this, according to the writer, made ample amends. Is that the idea we now have of love? If I have a child, no matter how deformed that child may be, and if it dies, n.o.body can make the loss to me good by bringing a more beautiful child. I want the one I loved and the one I lost.

THE GALLANTRY OF G.o.d.

VII.

I HAVE said that the Bible is a barbarous book; that it has no respect for the rights of woman. Now I propose to prove it. It takes something besides epithets and invectives to prove or disprove anything. Let us see what the sacred volume says concerning the mothers and daughters of the human race.

A man who does not in his heart of hearts respect woman, who has not there an altar at which he wors.h.i.+ps the memory of mother, is less than a man.

11. "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection.

12. "But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence."

The reason given for this, and the only reason that occurred to the sacred writer, was:

13. "For Adam was first formed, then Eve.

14. "And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.

15. "Notwithstanding, she shall be saved in child-bearing, if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety."--_1 Tim. ii._

3. "But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man; and the head of Christ is G.o.d."

That is to say, the woman sustains the same relation to the man that man does to Christ, and man sustains the same relation to Christ that Christ does to G.o.d.

This places the woman infinitely below the man. And yet this barbarous idiocy is regarded as divinely inspired. How can any woman look other than with contempt upon such pa.s.sages? How can any woman believe that this is the will of a most merciful G.o.d?

7. "For a man, indeed, ought not to cover his head, forasmuch as he is the image and glory of G.o.d; but the woman is the glory of man."

And this is justified from the remarkable fact set forth in the next verse:

8. "For the man is not of the woman; but the woman of the man."

This same chivalric gentleman also says:

9. "Neither was the man created for the woman; but the woman for the man."--_1 Cor. xi._

22. "Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord."

Is it possible for abject obedience to go beyond this?

23. "For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church, and he is the saviour of the body.

24. "Therefore, as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in everything."--_Eph. v._

Even the Savior did not put man and woman upon an equality. A man could divorce his wife, but the wife could not divorce her husband.

Every n.o.ble woman should hold such apostles and such ideas in contempt.

According to the Old Testament, woman had to ask pardon and had to be purified from the crime of having born sons and daughters. To make love and maternity crimes is infamous.

10. "When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy G.o.d hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captive,

11. "And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldest have her to thy wife,

12. "Then thou shalt bring her home to thy house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails."--_Deut. xxi_.

This is barbarism, no matter whether it came from heaven or from h.e.l.l, from a G.o.d or from a devil, from the golden streets of the New Jerusalem or from the very Sodom of perdition. It is barbarism complete and utter.

DOES THE BIBLE SANCTION POLYGAMY AND CONCUBINAGE?

VIII.

READ the infamous order of Moses in the 31st chapter of Numbers--an order unfit to be reproduced in print--an order which I am unwilling to repeat. Read the 31 st chapter of Exodus. Read the 21 st chapter of Deuteronomy. Read the-life of Abraham, of David, of Solomon, of Jacob, and then tell me the sacred Bible does not teach polygamy and concubinage. All the languages of the world are insufficient to express the filth of polygamy. It makes man a beast--woman a slave. It destroys the fireside. It makes virtue an outcast. It makes home a lair of wild beasts. It is the infamy of infamies. Yet this is the doctrine of the Bible--a doctrine defended even by Luther and Melancthon. It is by the Bible that Brigham Young justifies the practice of this beastly horror.

It takes from language those sweetest words, husband, wife, father mother, child and lover. It takes us back to the barbarism of animals, and leaves the heart a den in which crawl and hiss the slimy serpents of loathsome l.u.s.t. Yet the book justifying this infamy is the book upon which rests the civilization of the nineteenth century. And because I denounce this frightful thing, the clergy denounce me as a demon, and the infamous _Christian Advocate_ says that the moral sentiment of this State ought to denounce this Illinois Catiline for his blasphemous utterances and for his base and debasing scurrility.

DOES THE BIBLE UPHOLD AND JUSTIFY POLITICAL TYRANNY?

IX.

FOR my part, I insist that man has not only the capacity, but the right to govern himself. All political authority is vested in the people themselves, They have the right to select their officers and agents, and these officers and agents are responsible to the people. Political authority does not come from the clouds. Man should not be governed by the aristocracy of the air. The Bible is not a Republican or Democratic book. Exactly the opposite doctrine is taught. From that volume we learn that the people have no power whatever; that all power and political authority comes from on high, and that all the kings, all the potentates and powers, have been ordained of G.o.d; that all the ignorant and cruel kings have been placed upon the world's thrones by the direct act of Deity. The Scriptures teach us that the common people have but one duty--the duty of obedience. Let me read to you some of the political ideas in the great "Magna Charta" of human liberty.

1. "Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of G.o.d; the powers that be are ordained of G.o.d.

2. "Whosoever, therefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of G.o.d: and they that resist shall receive to themselves d.a.m.nation."

According to this, George III. was ordained of G.o.d. He was King of Great Britian by divine right, and by divine right was the lawful King of the American Colonies. The leaders in the Revolutionary struggle resisted the power, and according to these pa.s.sages, resisted the ordinances of G.o.d; and for that resistance they are promised the eternal recompense of d.a.m.nation.

3. "For rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. Wilt thou then not be afraid of the power? do that which is good, and thou shalt have praise of the same....

5. "Wherefore, ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.

6. "For, for this cause pay ye tribute also; for they are G.o.d's ministers, attending continually upon this very thing."--_Romans, xiii._

13. "Submit yourselves to every ordinance of man for the Lord's sake; whether it be to the king as supreme.

14. "Or unto governors, as unto them that are sent by him for the punishment of evil-doers, and for the praise of them that do well.

15. "For so is the will of G.o.d."--_1 Pet. ii._

Had these ideas been carried out, political progress in the world would have been impossible. Upon the necks of the people still would have been the feet of kings. I deny this wretched, this infamous doctrine.

Whether higher powers are ordained of G.o.d or not, if those higher powers endeavor to destroy the rights of man, I for one shall resist. Whenever and wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn in support of a human right, I am a rebel. The despicable doctrine of submission to t.i.tled wrong and robed injustice finds no lodgment in the brain of a man.

The real rulers are the people, and the rulers so-called are but the servants of the people. They are not ordained of any G.o.d. All political power comes from and belongs to man. Upon these texts of Scripture rest the thrones of Europe. For fifteen hundred years these verses have been repeated by brainless kings and heardess priests. For fifteen hundred years each one of these texts has been a bastile in which has been imprisoned the pioneers of progress. Each one of these texts has been an obstruction on the highway of humanity. Each one has been a fortification behind which have crouched the sainted hypocrites and the t.i.tled robbers. According to these texts, a robber gets his right to rob from G.o.d. And it is the duty of the robbed to submit. The thief gets his right to steal from G.o.d. The king gets his right to trample upon human liberty from G.o.d. I say, fight the king--fight the priest.