The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume VIII Part 54

There were two reasons given to the Hebrews for keeping the Sabbath --one because Jehovah rested on that day, the other because the Hebrews were brought out of Egypt. The first reason, we know, is false, and the second reason is good only for the Hebrews. According to the Bible, Sunday, or rather the Sabbath, was not for the world, but for the Hebrews, and the Hebrews alone. Our Sunday is pagan and is the day of the sun, as Monday is the day of the moon. All our day names are pagan. I am opposed to all Sunday legislation.

_Question_. Why should Sunday be observed otherwise than as a day of recreation?

_Answer_. Sunday is a day of recreation, or should be; a day for the laboring man to rest, a day to visit museums and libraries, a day to look at pictures, a day to get acquainted with your wife and children, a day for poetry and art, a day on which to read old letters and to meet friends, a day to cultivate the amenities of life, a day for those who live in tenements to feel the soft gra.s.s beneath their feet. In short, Sunday should be a day of joy. The church endeavors to fill it with gloom and sadness, with stupid sermons and dyspeptic theology.

Nothing could be more cowardly than the effort to compel the observance of the Sabbath by law. We of America have outgrown the childishness of the last century; we laugh at the superst.i.tions of our fathers. We have made up our minds to be as happy as we can be, knowing that the way to be happy is to make others so, that the time to be happy is now, whether that now is Sunday or any other day in the week.

_Question_. Under a Federal Const.i.tution guaranteeing civil and religious liberty, are the so-called "Blue Laws" const.i.tutional?

_Answer_. No, they are not. But the probability is that the Supreme Courts of most of the States would decide the other way.

And yet all these laws are clearly contrary to the spirit of the Federal Const.i.tution and the const.i.tutions of most of the States.

I hope to live until all these foolish laws are repealed and until we are in the highest and n.o.blest sense a free people. And by free I mean each having the right to do anything that does not interfere with the rights or with the happiness of another. I want to see the time when we live for this world and when all shall endeavor to increase, by education, by reason, and by persuasion, the sum of human happiness.

--_New York Times_, July 21, 1893.

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS.

_Question_. The Parliament of Religions was called with a view to discussing the great religions of the world on the broad platform of tolerance. Supposing this to have been accomplished, what effect is it likely to have on the future of creeds?

_Answer_. It was a good thing to get the representatives of all creeds to meet and tell their beliefs. The tendency, I think, is to do away with prejudice, with provincialism, with egotism. We know that the difference between the great religions, so far as belief is concerned, amounts to but little. Their G.o.ds have different names, but in other respects they differ but little.

They are all cruel and ignorant.

_Question_. Do you think likely that the time is coming when all the religions of the world will be treated with the liberality that is now characterizing the att.i.tude of one sect toward another in Christendom?

_Answer_. Yes, because I think that all religions will be found to be of equal authority, and because I believe that the supernatural will be discarded and that man will give up his vain and useless efforts to get back of nature--to answer the questions of whence and whither? As a matter of fact, the various sects do not love one another. The keenest hatred is religious hatred. The most malicious malice is found in the hearts of those who love their enemies.

_Question_. Bishop Newman, in replying to a learned Buddhist at the Parliament of Religions, said that Buddhism had given to the world no helpful literature, no social system, and no heroic virtues.

Is this true?

_Answer_. Bishop Newman is a very prejudiced man. Probably he got his information from the missionaries. Buddha was undoubtedly a great teacher. Long before Christ lived Buddha taught the brotherhood of man. He said that intelligence was the only lever capable of raising mankind. His followers, to say the least of them, are as good as the followers of Christ. Bishop Newman is a Methodist--a follower of John Wesley--and he has the prejudices of the sect to which he belongs. We must remember that all prejudices are honest.

_Question_. Is Christian society, or rather society in Christian countries, cursed with fewer robbers, a.s.sa.s.sins, and thieves, proportionately, then countries where "heathen" religions predominate?

_Answer_. I think not. I do not believe that there are more lynchings, more mob murders in India or Turkey or Persia than in some Christian States of the great Republic. Neither will you find more train robbers, more forgers, more thieves in heathen lands than in Christian countries. Here the jails are full, the penitentiaries are crowded, and the hangman is busy. All over Christendom, as many a.s.sert, crime is on the increase, going hand in hand with poverty. The truth is, that some of the wisest and best men are filled with apprehension for the future, but I believe in the race and have confidence in man.

_Question_. How can society be so reconstructed that all this horrible suffering, resultant from poverty and its natural a.s.sociate, crime, may be abolished, or at least reduced to a minimum?

_Answer_. In the first place we should stop supporting the useless.

The burden of superst.i.tion should be taken from the shoulders of industry. In the next place men should stop bowing to wealth instead of worth. Men should be judged by what they do, by what they are, instead of by the property they have. Only those able to raise and educate children should have them. Children should be better born--better educated. The process of regeneration will be slow, but it will be sure. The religion of our day is supported by the worst, by the most dangerous people in society. I do not allude to murderers or burglars, or even to the little thieves.

I mean those who debauch courts and legislatures and elections-- those who make millions by legal fraud.

_Question_. What do you think of the Theosophists? Are they sincere--have they any real basis for their psychological theories?

_Answer_. The Theosophists may be sincere. I do not know. But I am perfectly satisfied that their theories are without any foundation in fact--that their doctrines are as unreal as their "astral bodies," and as absurd as a contradiction in mathematics.

We have had vagaries and theories enough. We need the religion of the real, the faith that rests on fact. Let us turn our attention to this world--the world in which we live.

--_New York Herald_, September, 1893.

CLEVELAND'S HAWAIIAN POLICY.

_Question_. Colonel, what do you think about Mr. Cleveland's Hawaiian policy?

_Answer_. I think it exceedingly laughable and a little dishonest --with the further fault that it is wholly unconst.i.tutional. This is not a one-man Government, and while Liliuokalani may be Queen, Cleveland is certainly not a king. The worst thing about the whole matter, as it appears to me, is the bad faith that was shown by Mr. Cleveland--the double-dealing. He sent Mr. Willis as Minister to the Provisional Government and by that act admitted the existence, and the rightful existence, of the Provisional Government of the Sandwich Islands.

When Mr. Willis started he gave him two letters. One was addressed to Dole, President of the Provisional Government, in which he addressed Dole as "Great and good friend," and at the close, being a devout Christian, he asked "G.o.d to take care of Dole." This was the first letter. The letter of one President to another; of one friend to another. The second letter was addressed to Mr. Willis, in which Mr. Willis was told to upset Dole at the first opportunity and put the deposed Queen back on her throne. This may be diplomacy, but it is no kin to honesty.

In my judgment, it is the worst thing connected with the Hawaiian affair. What must "the great and good" Dole think of our great and good President? What must other nations think when they read the two letters and mentally exclaim, "Look upon this and then upon that?" I think Mr. Cleveland has acted arrogantly, foolishly, and unfairly. I am in favor of obtaining the Sandwich Islands--of course by fair means. I favor this policy because I want my country to become a power in the Pacific. All my life I have wanted this country to own the West Indies, the Bermudas, the Bahamas and Barbadoes. They are our islands. They belong to this continent, and for any other nation to take them or claim them was, and is, a piece of impertinence and impudence.

So I would like to see the Sandwich Islands annexed to the United States. They are a good way from San Francisco and our Western sh.o.r.e, but they are nearer to us than they are to any other nation.

I think they would be of great importance. They would tend to increase the Asiatic trade, and they certainly would be important in case of war. We should have fortifications on those islands that no naval power could take.

Some objection has been made on the ground that under our system the people of those islands would have to be represented in Congress.

I say yes, represented by a delegate until the islands become a real part of the country, and by that time, there would be several hundred thousand Americans living there, capable of sending over respectable members of Congress.

Now, I think that Mr. Cleveland has made a very great mistake.

First, I think he was mistaken as to the facts in the Sandwich Islands; second, as to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and thirdly, as to the powers of the President of the United States.

_Question_. In your experience as a lawyer what was the most unique case in which you were ever engaged?

_Answer_. The Star Route trial. Every paper in the country, but one, was against the defence, and that one was a little sheet owned by one of the defendants. I received a note from a man living in a little town in Ohio criticizing me for defending the accused.

In reply I wrote that I supposed he was a sensible man and that he, of course, knew what he was talking about when he said the accused were guilty; that the Government needed just such men as he, and that he should come to the trial at once and testify. The man wrote back: "Dear Colonel: I am a ---- fool."

_Question_. Will the church and the stage ever work together for the betterment of the world, and what is the province of each?

_Answer_. The church and stage will never work together. The pulpit pretends that fiction is fact. The stage pretends that fiction is fact. The pulpit pretence is dishonest--that of the stage is sincere. The actor is true to art, and honestly pretends to be what he is not. The actor is natural, if he is great, and in this naturalness is his truth and his sincerity. The pulpit is unnatural, and for that reason untrue. The pulpit is for another world, the stage for this. The stage is good because it is natural, because it portrays real and actual life; because "it holds the mirror up to nature." The pulpit is weak because it too often belittles and demeans this life; because it slanders and calumniates the natural and is the enemy of joy.

--_The Inter-Ocean_, Chicago, February 2, 1894.

ORATORS AND ORATORY.*

[* It was at his own law office in New York City that I had my talk with that very notable American, Col. Robert G.

Ingersoll. "Bob" Ingersoll, Americans call him affectionately; in a company of friends it is "The Colonel."

A more interesting personality it would be hard to find, and those who know even a little of him will tell you that a bigger-hearted man probably does not live. Suppose a well- knit frame, grown stouter than it once was, and a fine, strong face, with a vivid gleam in the eyes, a deep, uncommonly musical voice, clear cut, decisive, and a manner entirely delightful, yet tinged with a certain reserve.

Introduce a smoking cigar, the smoke rising in little curls and billows, then imagine a rugged sort of picturesqueness in dress, and you get, not by any means the man, but, still, some notion of "Bob" Ingersoll.

Colonel Ingersoll stands at the front of American orators.

The natural thing, therefore, was that I should ask him--a master in the art--about oratory. What he said I shall give in his own words precisely as I took them down from his lips, for in the case of such a good commander of the old English tongue that is of some importance. But the wonderful limpidness, the charming pellucidness of Ingersoll can only be adequately understood when you also have the finis.h.i.+ng touch of his facile voice.]