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The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII.

by Robert Green Ingersoll · English · Gutenberg #20447 · 1,212,335 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Volume VIII.

Author: Robert Green Ingersoll


        
Release date: January 25, 2007 [eBook #20447]
                Most recently updated: May 30, 2007

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE WORKS OF ROBERT G. INGERSOLL, VOLUME VIII. ***




Produced by An Anonymous volunteer




Transcriber's note:

  Footnotes that describe the subject or circumstances of the interview
  are placed immediately after its title, or where they occur in the
  narrative.  Other footnotes are at the end of the interview.

  The digraph "ae" has been spelled out for clarity.  "Employe", used
  throughout with no accent, has been replaced by "employee".
  "Buechner" appeared with the umlaut in the original.

  Typographical and grammatical errors and misspellings have been
  corrected, but 19th-century variants have been retained.  Question
  marks have been added where required.

  LoC call number:  BL2720.A2


[Frontispiece:  v8.jpg]
  "_With daughters' babes upon his knees,
   the white hair mingling with the gold_."
  EVA INGERSOLL-BROWN    ROBERT G. INGERSOLL BROWN.


Dresden Edition

THE WORKS
OF
_Robert G. Ingersoll_

"HAPPINESS IS THE ONLY GOOD, REASON THE ONLY
TORCH, JUSTICE THE ONLY WORSHIP, HUMANITY THE
ONLY RELIGION, AND LOVE THE ONLY PRIEST."

IN TWELVE VOLUMES
VOLUME VIII.

INTERVIEWS

NEW YORK
THE DRESDEN PUBLISHING CO.,
C. P. FARRELL
MCMXV


COPYRIGHT, 1900
BY
C. P. FARRELL

COPYRIGHT, 1901
BY
THE DRESDEN PUBLISHING CO.


CONTENTS OF VOLUME VIII.
INTERVIEWS.

THE BIBLE AND A FUTURE LIFE, Washington Post

MRS. VAN COTT, THE REVIVALIST, Buffalo Express

EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION, Washington Post

THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE, Buffalo Express

THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION, Cincinnati Commercial

SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG, Pittsburg Leader

POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS, Chicago Times

POLITICS AND GEN. GRANT, Indianapolis Journal

POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE, Chicago Times

REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS, Chicago Tribune

THE REPUBLICAN VICTORY, New York Herald

INGERSOLL AND BEECHER, New York Herald

POLITICAL, Washington Post

RELIGION IN POLITICS, New York Evening Express

MIRACLES AND IMMORTALITY, Pittsburg Dispatch

THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK, Cincinnati Commercial

MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO, Brooklyn Eagle

HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT, Brooklyn Eagle

A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING, New Haven Sunday Union

BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS, Brooklyn Eagle

ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS, Chicago Times

GUITEAU AND HIS CRIME, Washington Sunday Gazette

DISTRICT SUFFRAGE, Washington Capital

FUNERAL OF JOHN G. MILLS AND IMMORTALITY, Washington Post

STAR ROUTE AND POLITICS, New York Herald

THE INTERVIEWER, New York Morning Journal

POLITICS AND PROHIBITION, Chicago Times

THE REPUBLICAN DEFEAT IN OHIO, Dayton Democrat

THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL, Washington National Republican

JUSTICE HARLAN AND THE CIVIL RIGHTS BILL, Chicago Inter-Ocean

POLITICS AND THEOLOGY, Denver Tribune

MORALITY AND IMMORTALITY, Detroit News

POLITICS, MORMONISM AND MR. BEECHER, Denver News

FREE TRADE AND CHRISTIANITY, Denver Republican

THE OATH QUESTION, London Secular Review

WENDELL PHILLIPS, FITZ JOHN PORTER AND BISMARCK, Chicago Times

GENERAL SUBJECTS, Kansas City Times

REPLY TO KANSAS CITY CLERGY, Kansas City Journal

SWEARING AND AFFIRMING, Buffalo Courier

REPLY TO A BUFFALO CRITIC, Buffalo Times

BLASPHEMY, Philadelphia Press

POLITICS AND BRITISH COLUMBIA, San Francisco Evening Post

INGERSOLL CATECHISED, San Francisco San Franciscan

BLAINE'S DEFEAT, Topeka Commonwealth

BLAINE'S DEFEAT, Louisville Commercial

PLAGIARISM AND POLITICS, Cleveland Plain Dealer

RELIGIOUS PREJUDICE, New York Mail and Express

CLEVELAND AND HIS CABINET, New York Mail and Express

RELIGION, PROHIBITION AND GEN. GRANT, Iowa State Register

HELL OR SHEOL AND OTHER SUBJECTS, Boston Evening Record

INTERVIEWING, POLITICS AND SPIRITUALISM, Cleveland Plain Dealer

MY BELIEF, Philadelphia Times

SOME LIVE TOPICS, New York Truth Seeker

THE PRESIDENT AND THE SENATE, Chicago Inter-Ocean

ATHEISM AND CITIZENSHIP, New York Herald

THE LABOR QUESTION, Cincinnati Enquirer

RAILROADS AND POLITICS, Cincinnati Times Star

PROHIBITION, Boston Evening Traveler

HENRY GEORGE AND LABOR, New York Herald

LABOR QUESTION AND SOCIALISM, New York World

HENRY GEORGE AND SOCIALISM, Chicago Times

REPLY TO THE REV. B. F. MORSE, New York Herald

INGERSOLL ON McGLYNN, Brooklyn Citizen

TRIAL OF THE CHICAGO ANARCHISTS, New York Mail and Express

THE STAGE AND THE PULPIT, New York Truth Seeker

ROSCOE CONKLING, New York Herald

THE CHURCH AND THE STATE, New York Dramatic Mirror

PROTECTION--FREE TRADE, New York Press

LABOR AND TARIFF REFORM, New York Press

CLEVELAND AND THURMAN, New York Press

THE REPUBLICAN PLATFORM OF 1888, New York Press

JAMES G. BLAINE AND POLITICS, New York Press

THE MILLS BILL, New York Press

SOCIETY AND ITS CRIMINALS, New York World

WOMAN'S RIGHT TO DIVORCE, New York World

SECULARISM, Toronto Secular Thought

SUMMER RECREATION--MR. GLADSTONE, Unpublished

PROHIBITION, New York World

ROBERT ELSMERE, New York World

WORKING GIRLS, New York World

PROTECTION FOR AMERICAN ACTORS, New York Star

LIBERALS AND LIBERALISM, Toronto Secular Thought

POPE LEO XIII., New York Herald

THE SACREDNESS OF THE SABBATH, New York Journal

THE WEST AND SOUTH, Indianapolis Journal

THE WESTMINSTER CREED AND OTHER SUBJECTS, Rochester Post-Express

SHAKESPEARE AND BACON, Minneapolis Tribune

GROWING OLD GRACEFULLY, AND PRESBYTERIANISM, Toledo Blade

CREEDS, New York Morning Advertiser

THE TENDENCY OF MODERN THOUGHT, Chicago Tribune

WOMAN SUFFRAGE, HORSE RACING, AND MONEY, Chicago Inter-Ocean

MISSIONARIES, Cleveland Press

MY BELIEF AND UNBELIEF, Toledo Blade

MUST RELIGION GO? New York Evening Advertiser

WORD PAINTING AND COLLEGE EDUCATION, Indianapolis News

PERSONAL MAGNETISM AND THE SUNDAY QUESTION, Cincinnati Commercial
  Gazette

AUTHORS, Kansas City Star

INEBRIETY, Unpublished

MIRACLES, THEOSOPHY AND SPIRITUALISM, Unpublished

TOLSTOY AND LITERATURE, Buffalo Evening Express

WOMAN IN POLITICS, New York Advertiser

SPIRITUALISM, St. Louis Globe-Democrat

PLAYS AND PLAYERS, New York Dramatic Mirror

WOMAN, A Fragment

STRIKES, EXPANSION AND OTHER SUBJECTS, New York, May 5, 1893

SUNDAY A DAY OF PLEASURE, New York Times

THE PARLIAMENT OF RELIGIONS, New York Herald

CLEVELAND'S HAWAIIAN POLICY, Chicago Inter-Ocean

ORATORS AND ORATORY, London Sketch

CATHOLICISM AND PROTESTANTISM.--THE POPE.--THE A. P. A., AGNOSTICISM
  AND THE CHURCH, New York Herald

WOMAN AND HER DOMAIN, Grand Rapids Democrat

PROFESSOR SWING, Chicago Inter-Ocean

SENATOR SHERMAN AND HIS BOOK, St. Louis Globe-Democrat

REPLY TO THE CHRISTIAN ENDEAVORERS, New York Journal

SPIRITUALISM, New York Journal

A LITTLE OF EVERYTHING, Rochester Herald

IS LIFE WORTH LIVING?--CHRISTIAN SCIENCE AND POLITICS, Chicago
  Inter-Ocean

VIVISECTION, New York Evening Telegram

DIVORCE, New York Herald

MUSIC, NEWSPAPERS, LYNCHING AND ARBITRATION, Chicago Inter-Ocean

A VISIT TO SHAW'S GARDEN, St. Louis Republic

THE VENEZUELA BOUNDARY DISCUSSION AND THE WHIPPING POST, New York
  Journal

COLONEL SHEPARD'S STAGE HORSES, New York Morning Advertiser

A REPLY TO THE REV. L. A. BANKS, Cleveland Plain Dealer

CUBA--ZOLA AND THEOSOPHY, Louisville Courier-Journal

HOW TO BECOME AN ORATOR, New York Sun

JOHN RUSSELL YOUNG AND EXPANSION, Philadelphia Press

PSYCHICAL RESEARCH AND THE BIBLE, New York Mind

THIS CENTURY'S GLORIES, New York Sun

CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND THE WHIPPING POST, Chicago Tribune

EXPANSION AND TRUSTS, Philadelphia North American


INTERVIEWS


THE BIBLE AND A FUTURE LIFE

_Question_.  Colonel, are your views of religion based upon the
Bible?

_Answer_.  I regard the Bible, especially the Old Testament, the
same as I do most other ancient books, in which there is some truth,
a great deal of error, considerable barbarism and a most plentiful
lack of good sense.

_Question_.  Have you found any other work, sacred or profane,
which you regard as more reliable?

_Answer_.  I know of no book less so, in my judgment.

_Question_.  You have studied the Bible attentively, have you not?

_Answer_.  I have read the Bible.  I have heard it talked about a
good deal, and am sufficiently well acquainted with it to justify
my own mind in utterly rejecting all claims made for its divine
origin.

_Question_.  What do you base your views upon?

_Answer_.  On reason, observation, experience, upon the discoveries
in science, upon observed facts and the analogies properly growing
out of such facts.  I have no confidence in anything pretending to
be outside, or independent of, or in any manner above nature.

_Question_.  According to your views, what disposition is made of
man after death?

_Answer_.  Upon that subject I know nothing.  It is no more wonderful
that man should live again than he now lives; upon that question
I know of no evidence.  The doctrine of immortality rests upon
human affection.  We love, therefore we wish to live.

_Question_.  Then you would not undertake to say what becomes of
man after death?

_Answer_.  If I told or pretended to know what becomes of man after
death, I would be as dogmatic as are theologians upon this question.
The difference between them and me is, I am honest.  I admit that
I do not know.

_Question_.  Judging by your criticism of mankind, Colonel, in your
recent lecture, you have not found his condition very satisfactory?

_Answer_.  Nature, outside of man, so far as I know, is neither
cruel nor merciful.  I am not satisfied with the present condition
of the human race, nor with the condition of man during any period
of which we have any knowledge.  I believe, however, the condition
of man is improved, and this improvement is due to his own exertions.
I do not make nature a being.  I do not ascribe to nature
intentions.

_Question_.  Is your theory, Colonel, the result of investigation
of the subject?

_Answer_.  No one can control his own opinion or his own belief.
My belief was forced upon me by my surroundings.  I am the product
of all circumstances that have in any way touched me.  I believe
in this world.  I have no confidence in any religion promising joys
in another world at the expense of liberty and happiness in this.
At the same time, I wish to give others all the rights I claim for
myself.

_Question_.  If I asked for proofs for your theory, what would you
furnish?

_Answer_.  The experience of every man who is honest with himself,
every fact that has been discovered in nature.  In addition to
these, the utter and total failure of all religionists in all
countries to produce one particle of evidence showing the existence
of any supernatural power whatever, and the further fact that the
people are not satisfied with their religion.  They are continually
asking for evidence.  They are asking it in every imaginable way.
The sects are continually dividing.  There is no real religious
serenity in the world.  All religions are opponents of intellectual
liberty.  I believe in absolute mental freedom.  Real religion with
me is a thing not of the head, but of the heart; not a theory, not
a creed, but a life.

_Question_.  What punishment, then, is inflicted upon man for his
crimes and wrongs committed in this life?

_Answer_.  There is no such thing as intellectual crime.  No man
can commit a mental crime.  To become a crime it must go beyond
thought.

_Question_.  What punishment is there for physical crime?

_Answer_.  Such punishment as is necessary to protect society and
for the reformation of the criminal.

_Question_.  If there is only punishment in this world, will not
some escape punishment?

_Answer_.  I admit that all do not seem to be punished as they
deserve.  I also admit that all do not seem to be rewarded as they
deserve; and there is in this world, apparently, as great failures
in matter of reward as in matter of punishment.  If there is another
life, a man will be happier there for acting according to his
highest ideal in this.  But I do not discern in nature any effort
to do justice.

--_The Post_, Washington, D. C., 1878.


MRS. VAN COTT, THE REVIVALIST

_Question_.  I see, Colonel, that in an interview published this
morning, Mrs. Van Cott (the revivalist), calls you "a poor barking
dog."  Do you know her personally?

_Answer_.  I have never met or seen her.

_Question_.  Do you know the reason she applied the epithet?

_Answer_.  I suppose it to be the natural result of what is called
vital piety; that is to say, universal love breeds individual
hatred.

_Question_.  Do you intend making any reply to what she says?

_Answer_.  I have written her a note of which this is a copy:

  _Buffalo, Feb. 24th, 1878._
MRS. VAN COTT;

My dear Madam:--Were you constrained by the love of Christ to call
a man who has never injured you "a poor barking dog?"  Did you make
this remark as a Christian, or as a lady?  Did you say these words
to illustrate in some faint degree the refining influence upon
women of the religion you preach?

What would you think of me if I should retort, using your language,
changing only the sex of the last word?

I have the honor to remain,

Yours truly,

R. G. INGERSOLL

_Question_.  Well, what do you think of the religious revival system
generally?

_Answer_.  The fire that has to be blown all the time is a poor
thing to get warm by.  I regard these revivals as essentially
barbaric.  I think they do no good, but much harm, they make innocent
people think they are guilty, and very mean people think they are
good.

_Question_.  What is your opinion concerning women as conductors
of these revivals?

_Answer_.  I suppose those engaged in them think they are doing
good.  They are probably honest.  I think, however, that neither
men nor women should be engaged in frightening people into heaven.
That is all I wish to say on the subject, as I do not think it
worth talking about.

--_The Express_, Buffalo, New York, Feb., 1878.


EUROPEAN TRIP AND GREENBACK QUESTION

_Question_.  What did you do on your European trip, Colonel?

_Answer_.  I went with my family from New York to Southampton,
England, thence to London, and from London to Edinburgh.  In Scotland
I visited every place where Burns had lived, from the cottage where
he was born to the room where he died.  I followed him from the
cradle to the coffin.  I went to Stratford-upon-Avon for the purpose
of seeing all that I could in any way connected with Shakespeare;
next to London, where we visited again all the places of interest,
and thence to Paris, where we spent a couple of weeks in the
Exposition.

_Question_.  And what did you think of it?

_Answer_.  So far as machinery--so far as the practical is concerned,
it is not equal to ours in Philadelphia; in art it is incomparably
beyond it.  I was very much gratified to find so much evidence in
favor of my theory that the golden age in art is in front of us;
that mankind has been advancing, that we did not come from a perfect
pair and immediately commence to degenerate.  The modern painters
and sculptors are far better and grander than the ancient.  I think
we excel in fine arts as much as we do in agricultural implements.
Nothing pleased me more than the painting from Holland, because
they idealized and rendered holy the ordinary avocations of life.
They paint cottages with sweet mothers and children; they paint
homes.  They are not much on Ariadnes and Venuses, but they paint
good women.

_Question_.  What did you think of the American display?

_Answer_.  Our part of the Exposition is good, but nothing to what
is should and might have been, but we bring home nearly as many
medals as we took things.  We lead the world in machinery and in
ingenious inventions, and some of our paintings were excellent.

_Question_.  Colonel, crossing the Atlantic back to America, what
do you think of the Greenback movement?

_Answer_.  In regard to the Greenback party, in the first place,
I am not a believer in miracles.  I do not believe that something
can be made out of nothing.  The Government, in my judgment, cannot
create money; the Government can give its note, like an individual,
and the prospect of its being paid determines its value.  We have
already substantially resumed.  Every piece of property that has
been shrinking has simply been resuming.  We expended during the
war--not for the useful, but for the useless, not to build up, but
to destroy--at least one thousand million dollars.  The Government
was an enormous purchaser; when the war ceased the industries of
the country lost their greatest customer.  As a consequence there
was a surplus of production, and consequently a surplus of labor.
At last we have gotten back, and the country since the war has
produced over and above the cost of production, something near the
amount that was lost during the war.  Our exports are about two
hundred million dollars more than our imports, and this is a healthy
sign.  There are, however, five or six hundred thousand men,
probably, out of employment; as prosperity increases this number
will decrease.  I am in favor of the Government doing something to
ameliorate the condition of these men.  I would like to see
constructed the Northern and Southern Pacific railroads; this would
give employment at once to many thousands, and homes after awhile
to millions.  All the signs of the times to me are good.  The
wretched bankrupt law, at last, is wiped from the statute books,
and honest people in a short time can get plenty of credit.  This
law should have been repealed years before it was.  It would have
been far better to have had all who have gone into bankruptcy during
these frightful years to have done so at once.

_Question_.  What will be the political effect of the Greenback
movement?

_Answer_.  The effect in Maine has been to defeat the Republican
party.  I do not believe any party can permanently succeed in the
United States that does not believe in and advocate actual money.
I want to see the greenback equal with gold the world round.  A
money below par keeps the people below par.  No man can possibly
be proud of a country that is not willing to pay its debts.  Several
of the States this fall may be carried by the Greenback party, but
if I have a correct understanding of their views, that party cannot
hold any State for any great length of time.  But all the men of
wealth should remember that everybody in the community has got, in
some way, to be supported.  I want to see them so that they can
support themselves by their own labor.  In my judgment real prosperity
will begin with actual resumption, because confidence will then
return.  If the workingmen of the United States cannot make their
living, cannot have the opportunity to labor, they have got to be
supported in some way, and in any event, I want to see a liberal
policy inaugurated by the Government.  I believe in improving rivers
and harbors.

I do not believe the trans-continental commerce of this country
should depend on one railroad.  I want new territories opened.  I
want to see American steamships running to all the great ports of
the world.  I want to see our flag flying on all the seas and in
all the harbors.  We have the best country, and, in my judgment,
the best people in the world, and we ought to be the most prosperous
nation on the earth.

_Question_.  Then you only consider the Greenback movement a
temporary thing?

_Answer_.  Yes; I do not believe that there is anything permanent
in anything that is not sound, that has not a perfectly sound
foundation, and I mean sound, sound in every sense of that word.
It must be wise and honest.  We have plenty of money; the trouble
is to get it.  If the Greenbackers will pass a law furnishing all
of us with collaterals, there certainly would be no trouble about
getting the money.  Nothing can demonstrate more fully the
plentifulness of money than the fact that millions of four per
cent. bonds have been taken in the United States.  The trouble is,
business is scarce.

_Question_.  But do you not think the Greenback movement will help
the Democracy to success in 1880?

_Answer_.  I think the Greenback movement will injure the Republican
party much more than the Democratic party.  Whether that injury
will reach as far as 1880 depends simply upon one thing.  If
resumption--in spite of all the resolutions to the contrary--
inaugurates an era of prosperity, as I believe and hope it will,
then it seems to me that the Republican party will be as strong in
the North as in its palmiest days.  Of course I regard most of the
old issues as settled, and I make this statement simply because I
regard the financial issue as the only living one.

Of course, I have no idea who will be the Democratic candidate,
but I suppose the South will be solid for the Democratic nominee,
unless the financial question divides that section of the country.

_Question_.  With a solid South do you not think the Democratic
nominee will stand a good chance?

_Answer_.  Certainly, he will stand the best chance if the Democracy
is right on the financial question; if it will cling to its old
idea of hard money, he will.  If the Democrats will recognize that
the issues of the war are settled, then I think that party has the
best chance.

_Question_.  But if it clings to soft money?

_Answer_.  Then I think it will be beaten, if by soft money it
means the payment of one promise with another.

_Question_.  You consider Greenbackers inflationists, do you not?

_Answer_.  I suppose the Greenbackers to be the party of inflation.
I am in favor of inflation produced by industry.  I am in favor of
the country being inflated with corn, with wheat, good houses,
books, pictures, and plenty of labor for everybody.  I am in favor
of being inflated with gold and silver, but I do not believe in
the inflation of promise, expectation and speculation.  I sympathize
with every man who is willing to work and cannot get it, and I
sympathize to that degree that I would like to see the fortunate
and prosperous taxed to support his unfortunate brother until labor
could be found.

The Greenback party seems to think credit is just as good as gold.
While the credit lasts this is so; but the trouble is, whenever it
is ascertained that the gold is gone or cannot be produced the
credit takes wings.  The bill of a perfectly solvent bank may
circulate for years.  Now, because nobody demands the gold on that
bill it doesn't follow that the bill would be just as good without
any gold behind it.  The idea that you can have the gold whenever
you present the bill gives it its value.  To illustrate:  A poor
man buys soup tickets.  He is not hungry at the time of purchase,
and will not be for some hours.  During those hours the Greenback
gentlemen argue that there is no use of keeping any soup on hand
with which to redeem these tickets, and from this they further
argue that if they can be good for a few hours without soup, why
not forever?  And they would be, only the holder gets hungry.
Until he is hungry, of course, he does not care whether any soup
is on hand or not, but when he presents his ticket he wants his
soup, and the idea that he can have the soup when he does present
the ticket gives it its value.  And so I regard bank notes, without
gold and silver, as of the same value as tickets without soup.

--_The Post_, Washington, D. C., 1878.


THE PRE-MILLENNIAL CONFERENCE.

_Question_.  What do you think of the Pre-Millennial Conference
that was held in New York City recently?

_Answer_.  Well, I think that all who attended it were believers
in the Bible, and any one who believes in prophecies and looks to
their fulfillment will go insane.  A man that tries from Daniel's
ram with three horns and five tails and his deformed goats to
ascertain the date of the second immigration of Christ to this
world is already insane.  It all shows that the moment we leave
the realm of fact and law we are adrift on the wide and shoreless
sea of theological speculation.

_Question_.  Do you think there will be a second coming?

_Answer_.  No, not as long as the church is in power.  Christ will
never again visit this earth until the Freethinkers have control.
He will certainly never allow another church to get hold of him.
The very persons who met in New York to fix the date of his coming
would despise him and the feeling would probably be mutual.  In
his day Christ was an Infidel, and made himself unpopular by
denouncing the church as it then existed.  He called them liars,
hypocrites, thieves, vipers, whited sepulchres and fools.  From
the description given of the church in that day, I am afraid that
should he come again, he would be provoked into using similar
language.  Of course, I admit there are many good people in the
church, just as there were some good Pharisees who were opposed to
the crucifixion.

--_The Express_, Buffalo, New York, Nov. 4th, 1878.


THE SOLID SOUTH AND RESUMPTION.

_Question_.  Colonel, to start with, what do you think of the solid
South?

_Answer_.  I think the South is naturally opposed to the Republican
party; more, I imagine, to the name, than to the personnel of the
organization.  But the South has just as good friends in the
Republican party as in the Democratic party.  I do not think there
are any Republicans who would not rejoice to see the South prosperous
and happy.  I know of none, at least.  They will have to get over
the prejudices born of isolation.  We lack direct and constant
communication.  I do not recollect having seen a newspaper from
the Gulf States for a long time.  They, down there, may imagine
that the feeling in the North is the same as during the war.  But
it certainly is not.  The Northern people are anxious to be friendly;
and if they can be, without a violation of their principles, they
will be.  Whether it be true or not, however, most of the Republicans
of the North believe that no Republican in the South is heartily
welcome in that section, whether he goes there from the North, or
is a Southern man.  Personally, I do not care anything about partisan
politics.  I want to see every man in the United States guaranteed
the right to express his choice at the ballot-box, and I do not
want social ostracism to follow a man, no matter how he may vote.
A solid South means a solid North.  A hundred thousand Democratic
majority in South Carolina means fifty thousand Republican majority
in New York in 1880.  I hope the sections will never divide, simply
as sections.  But if the Republican party is not allowed to live
in the South, the Democratic party certainly will not be allowed
to succeed in the North.  I want to treat the people of the South
precisely as though the Rebellion had never occurred.  I want all
that wiped from the slate of memory, and all I ask of the Southern
people is to give the same rights to the Republicans that we are
willing to give to them and have given to them.

_Question_.  How do you account for the results of the recent
elections?

_Answer_.  The Republican party won the recent election simply
because it was for honest money, and it was in favor of resumption.
And if on the first of January next, we resume all right, and
maintain resumption, I see no reason why the Republican party should
not succeed in 1880.  The Republican party came into power at the
commencement of the Rebellion, and necessarily retained power until
its close; and in my judgment, it will retain power so long as in
the horizon of credit there is a cloud of repudiation as large as
a man's hand.

_Question_.  Do you think resumption will work out all right?

_Answer_.  I do.  I think that on the first of January the greenback
will shake hands with gold on an equality, and in a few days
thereafter will be worth just a little bit more.  Everything has
resumed, except the Government.  All the property has resumed, all
the lands, bonds and mortgages and stocks.  All these things resumed
long ago--that is to say, they have touched the bottom.  Now, there
is no doubt that the party that insists on the Government paying
all its debts will hold control, and no one will get his hand on
the wheel who advocates repudiation in any form.  There is one
thing we must do, though.  We have got to put more silver in our
dollars.  I do not think you can blame the New York banks--any bank
--for refusing to take eighty-eight cents for a dollar.  Neither
can you blame any depositor who puts gold in the bank for demanding
gold in return.  Yes, we must have in the silver dollar a dollar's
worth of silver.

--_The Commercial_, Cincinnati, Ohio, November, 1878.


THE SUNDAY LAWS OF PITTSBURG.*

_Question_.  Colonel, what do you think of the course the Mayor
has pursued toward you in attempting to stop your lecture?

_Answer_.  I know very little except what I have seen in the morning
paper.  As a general rule, laws should be enforced or repealed;
and so far as I am personally concerned, I shall not so much complain
of the enforcing of the law against Sabbath breaking as of the fact
that such a law exists.  We have fallen heir to these laws.  They
were passed by superstition, and the enlightened people of to-day
should repeal them.  Ministers should not expect to fill their
churches by shutting up other places.  They can only increase their
congregations by improving their sermons.  They will have more
hearers when they say more worth hearing.  I have no idea that the
Mayor has any prejudice against me personally and if he only enforces
the law, I shall have none against him.  If my lectures were free
the ministers might have the right to object, but as I charge one
dollar admission and they nothing, they ought certainly be able to
compete with me.

_Question_.  Don't you think it is the duty of the Mayor, as chief
executive of the city laws, to enforce the ordinances and pay no
attention to what the statutes say?

_Answer_.  I suppose it to be the duty of the Mayor to enforce the
ordinance of the city and if the ordinance of the city covers the
same ground as the law of the State, a conviction under the ordinance
would be a bar to prosecution under the State law.

_Question_.  If the ordinance exempts scientific, literary and
historical lectures, as it is said it does, will not that exempt
you?

_Answer_.  Yes, all my lectures are historical; that is, I speak
of many things that have happened.  They are scientific because
they are filled with facts, and they are literary of course.  I
can conceive of no address that is neither historical nor scientific,
except sermons.  They fail to be historical because they treat of
things that never happened and they are certainly not scientific,
as they contain no facts.

_Question_.  Suppose they arrest you what will you do?

_Answer_.  I will examine the law and if convicted will pay the
fine, unless I think I can reverse the case by appeal.  Of course
I would like to see all these foolish laws wiped from the statute
books.  I want the law so that everybody can do just as he pleases
on Sunday, provided he does not interfere with the rights of others.
I want the Christian, the Jew, the Deist and the Atheist to be
exactly equal before the law.  I would fight for the right of the
Christian to worship God in his own way just as quick as I would
for the Atheist to enjoy music, flowers and fields.  I hope to see
the time when even the poor people can hear the music of the finest
operas on Sunday.  One grand opera with all its thrilling tones,
will do more good in touching and elevating the world than ten
thousand sermons on the agonies of hell.

_Question_.  Have you ever been interfered with before in delivering
Sunday lectures?

_Answer_.  No, I postponed a lecture in Baltimore at the request
of the owners of a theatre because they were afraid some action
might be taken.  That is the only case.  I have delivered lectures
on Sunday in the principal cities of the United States, in New
York, Boston, Buffalo, Chicago, San Francisco, Cincinnati and many
other places.  I lectured here last winter; it was on Sunday and
I heard nothing of its being contrary to law.  I always supposed
my lectures were good enough to be delivered on the most sacred
days.

--_The Leader_, Pittsburg, Pa., October 27, 1879.

[* The manager of the theatre, where Col. Ingersoll lectured, was fined
fifty dollars which Col. Ingersoll paid.]


POLITICAL AND RELIGIOUS.

_Question_.  What do you think about the recent election, and what
will be its effect upon political matters and the issues and
candidates of 1880?

_Answer_.  I think the Republicans have met with this almost
universal success on account, first, of the position taken by the
Democracy on the currency question; that is to say, that party was
divided, and was willing to go in partnership with anybody, whatever
their doctrines might be, for the sake of success in that particular
locality.  The Republican party felt it of paramount importance
not only to pay the debt, but to pay it in that which the world
regards as money.  The next reason for the victory is the position
assumed by the Democracy in Congress during the called session.
The threats they then made of what they would do in the event that
the executive did not comply with their demands, showed that the
spirit of the party had not been chastened to any considerable
extent by the late war.  The people of this country will not, in
my judgment, allow the South to take charge of this country until
they show their ability to protect the rights of citizens in their
respective States.

_Question_.  Then, as you regard the victories, they are largely
due to a firm adherence to principle, and the failure of the
Democratic party is due to their abandonment of principle, and
their desire to unite with anybody and everything, at the sacrifice
of principle, to attain success?

_Answer_.  Yes.  The Democratic party is a general desire for office
without organization.  Most people are Democrats because they hate
something, most people are Republicans because they love something.

_Question_.  Do you think the election has brought about any
particular change in the issues that will be involved in the campaign
of 1880?

_Answer_.  I think the only issue is who shall rule the country.

_Question_.  Do you think, then, the question of State Rights, hard
or soft money and other questions that have been prominent in the
campaign are practically settled, and so regarded by the people?

_Answer_.  I think the money question is, absolutely.  I think the
question of State Rights is dead, except that it can still be used
to defeat the Democracy.  It is what might be called a convenient
political corpse.

_Question_.  Now, to leave the political field and go to the
religious at one jump--since your last visit here much has been
said and written and published to the effect that a great change,
or a considerable change at least, had taken place in your religious,
or irreligious views.  I would like to know if that is so?

_Answer_.  The only change that has occurred in my religious views
is the result of finding more and more arguments in favor of my
position, and, as a consequence, if there is any difference, I am
stronger in my convictions than ever before.

_Question_.  I would like to know something of the history of your
religious views?

_Answer_.  I may say right here that the Christian idea that any
God can make me his friend by killing mine is about a great 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 a study of 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 word 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 really 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.

_Question_.  It is reported that you are the son of a Presbyterian
minister?

_Answer_.  Yes, I am the son of a New School Presbyterian minister.

_Question_.  About what age were you when you began this investigation
which led to your present convictions?

_Answer_.  I cannot remember when I believed the Bible doctrine of
eternal punishment.  I have a dim recollection of hating Jehovah
when I was exceedingly small.

_Question_.  Then your present convictions began to form themselves
while you were listening to the teachings of religion as taught by
your father?

_Answer_.  Yes, they did.

_Question_.  Did you discuss the matter with him?

_Answer_.  I did for many years, and before he died he utterly gave
up the idea that this life is a period of probation.  He utterly
gave up the idea of eternal punishment, and before he died he had
the happiness of believing that God was almost as good and generous
as he was himself.

_Question_.  I suppose this gossip about a change in your religious
views arose or was created by the expression used at your brother's
funeral, "In the night of death hope sees a star and listening love
can hear the rustle of a wing"?

_Answer_.  I never willingly will destroy a solitary human hope.
I have always said that I did not know whether man was or was not
immortal, but years before my brother died, in a lecture entitled
"The Ghosts," which has since been published, I used the following
words:  "The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and
flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope and
fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and fate, was
not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any religion.  It
was born of human affection, and it will continue to ebb and flow
beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness as long as love
kisses the lips of death.  It is the rainbow--Hope, shining upon
the tears of grief."

_Question_.  The great objection to your teaching urged by your
enemies is that you constantly tear down, and never build up?

_Answer_.  I have just published a little book entitled, "Some
Mistakes of Moses," in which I have endeavored to give most of the
arguments I have urged against the Pentateuch in a lecture I
delivered under that title.  The motto on the title page is, "A
destroyer of weeds, thistles and thorns is a benefactor, whether
he soweth grain or not."  I cannot for my life see why one should
be charged with tearing down and not rebuilding simply because he
exposes a sham, or detects a lie.  I do not feel under any obligation
to build something in the place of a detected falsehood.  All I
think I am under obligation to put in the place of a detected lie
is the detection.  Most religionists talk as if mistakes were
valuable things and they did not wish to part with them without a
consideration.  Just how much they regard lies worth a dozen I do
not know.  If the price is reasonable I am perfectly willing to
give it, rather than to see them live and give their lives to the
defence of delusions.  I am firmly convinced that to be happy here
will not in the least detract from our happiness in another world
should we be so fortunate as to reach another world; and I cannot
see the value of any philosophy that reaches beyond the intelligent
happiness of the present.  There may be a God who will make us
happy in another world.  If he does, it will be more than he has
accomplished in this.  I suppose that he will never have more than
infinite power and never have less than infinite wisdom, and why
people should expect that he should do better in another world than
he has in this is something that I have never been able to explain.
A being who has the power to prevent it and yet who allows thousands
and millions of his children to starve; who devours them with
earthquakes; who allows whole nations to be enslaved, cannot in my
judgment be implicitly be depended upon to do justice in another
world.

_Question_.  How do the clergy generally treat you?

_Answer_.  Well, of course there are the same distinctions among
clergymen as among other people.  Some of them are quite respectable
gentlemen, especially those with whom I am not acquainted.  I think
that since the loss of my brother nothing could exceed the
heartlessness of the remarks made by the average clergyman.  There
have been some noble exceptions, to whom I feel not only thankful
but grateful; but a very large majority have taken this occasion
to say most unfeeling and brutal things.  I do not ask the clergy
to forgive me, but I do request that they will so act that I will
not have to forgive them.  I have always insisted that those who
love their enemies should at least tell the truth about their
friends, but I suppose, after all, that religion must be supported
by the same means as those by which it was founded.  Of course,
there are thousands of good ministers, men who are endeavoring to
make the world better, and whose failure is no particular fault of
their own.  I have always been in doubt as to whether the clergy
were a necessary or an unnecessary evil.

_Question_.  I would like to have a positive expression of your
views as to a future state?

_Answer_.  Somebody asked Confucius about another world, and his
reply was:  "How should I know anything about another world when
I know so little of this?"  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 that 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 propose simply to take my chances with the rest of the folks,
and prepare to go where the people I am best acquainted with will
probably settle.  I cannot afford to leave the great ship and sneak
off to shore in some orthodox canoe.  I hope there is another life,
for I would like to see how things come out in the world when I am
dead.  There are some people I would like to see again, and hope
there are some who would not object to seeing me; but if there is
no other life I shall never know it.  I do not remember a time when
I did not exist; and if, when I die, that is the end, I shall not
know it, because the last thing I shall know is that I am alive,
and if nothing is left, nothing will be left to know that I am
dead; so that so far as I am concerned I am immortal; that is to
say, I cannot recollect when I did not exist, and there never will
be a time when I shall remember that I do not exist.  I would like
to have several millions of dollars, and I may say that 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 religion, 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 Saviour and his
apostles to tell us about another world, but they did not 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.

_Question_.  According to your observation of men, and your reading
in relation to the men and women of the world and of the church,
if there is another world divided according to orthodox principles
between the orthodox and heterodox, which of the two that are known
as heaven and hell would contain, in your judgment, the most good
society?

_Answer_.  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
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.  But, after all, what I really want to do is
to destroy the idea of eternal punishment.  That doctrine subverts
all ideas of justice.  That doctrine fills hell with honest men,
and heaven with intellectual and moral paupers.  That doctrine
allows people to sin on credit.  That doctrine allows the basest
to be eternally happy and the most honorable to suffer eternal
pain.  I think of all doctrines it is the most infinitely infamous,
and would disgrace the lowest savage; and any man who believes it,
and has imagination enough to understand it, has the heart of a
serpent and the conscience of a hyena.

_Question_.  Your objective point is to destroy the doctrine of
hell, is it?

_Answer_.  Yes, because the destruction of that doctrine will do
away with all cant and all pretence.  It will do away with all
religious bigotry and persecution.  It will allow every man to
think and to express his thought.  It will do away with bigotry in
all its slimy and offensive forms.

--_Chicago Tribune_, November 14, 1879.


POLITICS AND GEN. GRANT

_Question_.  Some people have made comparisons between the late
Senators O. P. Morton and Zach. Chandler.  What did you think of
them, Colonel?

_Answer_.  I think Morton had the best intellectual grasp of a
question of any man I ever saw.  There was an infinite difference
between the two men.  Morton's strength lay in proving a thing;
Chandler's in asserting it.  But Chandler was a strong man and no
hypocrite.

_Question_.  Have you any objection to being interviewed as to your
ideas of Grant, and his position before the people?

_Answer_.  I have no reason for withholding my views on that or
any other subject that is under public discussion.  My idea is that
Grant can afford to regard the presidency as a broken toy.  It
would add nothing to his fame if he were again elected, and would
add nothing to the debt of gratitude which the people feel they
owe him.  I do not think he will be a candidate.  I do not think
he wants it.  There are men who are pushing him on their own account.
Grant was a great soldier.  He won the respect of the civilized
world.  He commanded the largest army that ever fought for freedom,
and to make him President would not add a solitary leaf to the
wreath of fame already on his brow; and should he be elected, the
only thing he could do would be to keep the old wreath from fading.

I do not think his reputation can ever be as great in any direction
as in the direction of war.  He has made his reputation and has
lived his great life.  I regard him, confessedly, as the best
soldier the Anglo-Saxon blood has produced.  I do not know that it
necessarily follows because he is a great soldier he is great in
other directions.  Probably some of the greatest statesmen in the
world would have been the worst soldiers.

_Question_.  Do you regard him as more popular now than ever before?

_Answer_.  I think that his reputation is certainly greater and
higher than when he left the presidency, and mainly because he has
represented this country with so much discretion and with such
quiet, poised dignity all around the world.  He has measured himself
with kings, and was able to look over the heads of every one of
them.  They were not quite as tall as he was, even adding the crown
to their original height.  I think he represented us abroad with
wonderful success.  One thing that touched me very much was, that
at a reception given him by the workingmen of Birmingham, after he
had been received by royalty, he had the courage to say that that
reception gave him more pleasure than any other.  He has been
throughout perfectly true to the genius of our institutions, and
has not upon any occasion exhibited the slightest toadyism.  Grant
is a man who is not greatly affected by either flattery or abuse.

_Question_.  What do you believe to be his position in regard to
the presidency?

_Answer_.  My own judgment is that he does not care.  I do not
think he has any enemies to punish, and I think that while he was
President he certainly rewarded most of his friends.

_Question_.  What are your views as to a third term?

_Answer_.  I have no objection to a third term on principle, but
so many men want the presidency that it seems almost cruel to give
a third term to anyone.

_Question_.  Then, if there is no objection to a third term, what
about a fourth?

_Answer_.  I do not know that that could be objected to, either.
We have to admit, after all, that the American people, or at least
a majority of them, have a right to elect one man as often as they
please.  Personally, I think it should not be done unless in the
case of a man who is prominent above the rest of his fellow-citizens,
and whose election appears absolutely necessary.  But I frankly
confess I cannot conceive of any political situation where one man
is a necessity.  I do not believe in the one-man-on-horseback idea,
because I believe in all the people being on horseback.

_Question_.  What will be the effect of the enthusiastic receptions
that are being given to General Grant?

_Answer_.  I think these ovations show that the people are resolved
not to lose the results of the great victories of the war, and that
they make known this determination by their attention to General
Grant.  I think that if he goes through the principal cities of
this country the old spirit will be revived everywhere, and whether
it makes him President or not the result will be to make the election
go Republican.  The revival of the memories of the war will bring
the people of the North together as closely as at any time since
that great conflict closed, not in the spirit of hatred, or malice
or envy, but in generous emulation to preserve that which was fairly
won.  I do not think there is any hatred about it, but we are
beginning to see that we must save the South ourselves, and that
that is the only way we can save the nation.

_Question_.  But suppose they give the same receptions in the South?

_Answer_.  So much the better.

_Question_.  Is there any split in the solid South?

_Answer_.  Some of the very best people in the South are apparently
disgusted with following the Democracy any longer, and would hail
with delight any opportunity they could reasonably take advantage
of to leave the organization, if they could do so without making
it appear that they were going back on Southern interests, and this
opportunity will come when the South becomes enlightened, and sees
that it has no interests except in common with the whole country.
That I think they are beginning to see.

_Question_.  How do you like the administration of President Hayes?

_Answer_.  I think its attitude has greatly improved of late.
There are certain games of cards--pedro, for instance, where you
can not only fail to make something, but be set back.  I think that
Hayes's veto messages very nearly got him back to the commencement
of the game--that he is now almost ready to commence counting, and
make some points.  His position before the country has greatly
improved, but he will not develop into a dark horse.  My preference
is, of course, still for Blaine.

_Question_.  Where do you think it is necessary the Republican
candidate should come from to insure success?

_Answer_.  Somewhere out of Ohio.  I think it will go to Maine,
and for this reason:  First of all, Blaine is certainly a competent
man of affairs, a man who knows what to do at the time; and then
he has acted in such a chivalric way ever since the convention at
Cincinnati, that those who opposed him most bitterly, now have for
him nothing but admiration.  I think John Sherman is a man of
decided ability, but I do not believe the American people would
make one brother President, while the other is General of the Army.
It would be giving too much power to one family.

_Question_.  What are your conclusions as to the future of the
Democratic party?

_Answer_.  I think the Democratic party ought to disband.  I think
they would be a great deal stronger disbanded, because they would
get rid of their reputation without decreasing.

_Question_.  But if they will not disband?

_Answer_.  Then the next campaign depends undoubtedly upon New York
and Indiana.  I do not see how they can very well help nominating
a man from Indiana, and by that I mean Hendricks.  You see the
South has one hundred and thirty-eight votes, all supposed to be
Democratic; with the thirty-five from New York and fifteen from
Indiana they would have just three to spare.  Now, I take it, that
the fifteen from Indiana are just about as essential as the thirty-
five from New York.  To lack fifteen votes is nearly as bad as
being thirty-five short, and so far as drawing salary is concerned
it is quite as bad.  Mr. Hendricks ought to know that he holds the
key to Indiana, and that there cannot be any possibility of carrying
this State for Democracy without him.  He has tried running for
the vice-presidency, which is not much of a place anyhow--I would
about as soon be vice-mother-in-law--and my judgment is that he
knows exactly the value of his geographical position.  New York is
divided to that degree that it would be unsafe to take a candidate
from that State; and besides, New York has become famous for
furnishing defeated candidates for the Democracy.  I think the man
must come from Indiana.

_Question_.  Would the Democracy of New York unite on Seymour?

_Answer_.  You recollect what Lincoln said about the powder that
had been shot off once.  I do not remember any man who has once
made a race for the presidency and been defeated ever being again
nominated.

_Question_.  What about Bayard and Hancock as candidates?

_Answer_.  I do not see how Bayard could possibly carry Indiana,
while his own State is too small and too solidly Democratic.  My
idea of Bayard is that he has not been good enough to be popular,
and not bad enough to be famous.  The American people will never
elect a President from a State with a whipping-post.  As to General
Hancock, you may set it down as certain that the South will never
lend their aid to elect a man who helped to put down the Rebellion.
It would be just the same as the effort to elect Greeley.  It cannot
be done.  I see, by the way, that I am reported as having said that
David Davis, as the Democratic candidate, could carry Illinois.
I did say that in 1876, he could have carried it against Hayes;
but whether he could carry Illinois in 1880 would depend altogether
upon who runs against him.  The condition of things has changed
greatly in our favor since 1876.

--_The Journal_, Indianapolis, Ind., November, 1879.


POLITICS, RELIGION AND THOMAS PAINE.

_Question_.  You have traveled about this State more or less,
lately, and have, of course, observed political affairs here.  Do
you think that Senator Logan will be able to deliver this State to
the Grant movement according to the understood plan?

_Answer_.  If the State is really for Grant, he will, and if it is
not, he will not.  Illinois is as little "owned" as any State in
this Union.  Illinois would naturally be for Grant, other things
being equal, because he is regarded as a citizen of this State,
and it is very hard for a State to give up the patronage naturally
growing out of the fact that the President comes from that State.

_Question_.  Will the instructions given to delegates be final?

_Answer_.  I do not think they will be considered final at all;
neither do I think they will be considered of any force.  It was
decided at the last convention, in Cincinnati, that the delegates
had a right to vote as they pleased; that each delegate represented
the district of the State that sent him.  The idea that a State
convention can instruct them as against the wishes of their
constituents smacks a little too much of State sovereignty.  The
President should be nominated by the districts of the whole country,
and not by massing the votes by a little chicanery at a State
convention, and every delegate ought to vote what he really believes
to be the sentiment of his constituents, irrespective of what the
State convention may order him to do.  He is not responsible to
the State convention, and it is none of the State convention's
business.  This does not apply, it may be, to the delegates at
large, but to all the others it certainly must apply.  It was so
decided at the Cincinnati convention, and decided on a question
arising about this same Pennsylvania delegation.

_Question_.  Can you guess as to what the platform in going to
contain?

_Answer_.  I suppose it will be a substantial copy of the old one.
I am satisfied with the old one with one addition.  I want a plank
to the effect that no man shall be deprived of any civil or political
right on account of his religious or irreligious opinions.  The
Republican party having been foremost in freeing the body ought to
do just a little something now for the mind.  After having wasted
rivers of blood and treasure uncounted, and almost uncountable, to
free the cage, I propose that something ought to be done for the
bird.  Every decent man in the United States would support that
plank.  People should have a right to testify in courts, whatever
their opinions may be, on any subject.  Justice should not shut
any door leading to truth, and as long as just views neither affect
a man's eyesight or his memory, he should be allowed to tell his
story.  And there are two sides to this question, too.  The man is
not only deprived of his testimony, but the commonwealth is deprived
of it.  There should be no religious test in this country for
office; and if Jehovah cannot support his religion without going
into partnership with a State Legislature, I think he ought to give
it up.

_Question_.  Is there anything new about religion since you were
last here?

_Answer_.  Since I was here I have spoken in a great many cities,
and to-morrow I am going to do some missionary work at Milwaukee.
Many who have come to scoff have remained to pray, and I think that
my labors are being greatly blessed, and all attacks on me so far
have been overruled for good.  I happened to come in contact with
a revival of religion, and I believe what they call an "outpouring"
at Detroit, under the leadership of a gentleman by the name of
Pentecost.  He denounced me as God's greatest enemy.  I had always
supposed that the Devil occupied that exalted position, but it
seems that I have, in some way, fallen heir to his shoes.  Mr.
Pentecost also denounced all business men who would allow any
advertisements or lithographs of mine to hang in their places of
business, and several of these gentlemen thus appealed to took the
advertisements away.  The result of all this was that I had the
largest house that ever attended a lecture in Detroit.  Feeling
that ingratitude is a crime, I publicly returned thanks to the
clergy for the pains they had taken to give me an audience.  And
I may say, in this connection, that if the ministers do God as
little good as they do me harm, they had better let both of us
alone.  I regard them as very good, but exceedingly mistaken men.
They do not come much in contact with the world, and get most of
their views by talking with the women and children of their
congregations.  They are not permitted to mingle freely with society.
They cannot attend plays nor hear operas.  I believe some of them
have ventured to minstrel shows and menageries, where they confine
themselves strictly to the animal part of the entertainment.  But,
as a rule, they have very few opportunities of ascertaining what
the real public opinion is.  They read religious papers, edited by
gentlemen who know as little about the world as themselves, and
the result of all this is that they are rather behind the times.
They are good men, and would like to do right if they only knew
it, but they are a little behind the times.  There is an old story
told of a fellow who had a post-office in a small town in North
Carolina, and he being the only man in the town who could read, a
few people used to gather in the post-office on Sunday, and he
would read to them a weekly paper that was published in Washington.
He commenced always at the top of the first column and read right
straight through, articles, advertisements, and all, and whenever
they got a little tired of reading he would make a mark of red
ochre and commence at that place the next Sunday.  The result was
that the papers came a great deal faster than he read them, and it
was about 1817 when they struck the war of 1812.  The moment they
got to that, every one of them jumped up and offered to volunteer.
All of which shows that they were patriotic people, but a little
show, and somewhat behind the times.

_Question_.  How were you pleased with the Paine meeting here, and
its results?

_Answer_.  I was gratified to see so many people willing at last
to do justice to a great and a maligned man.  Of course I do not
claim that Paine was perfect.  All I claim is that he was a patriot
and a political philosopher; that he was a revolutionist and an
agitator; that he was infinitely full of suggestive thought, and
that he did more than any man to convince the people of American
not only that they ought to separate from Great Britain, but that
they ought to found a representative government.  He has been
despised simply because he did not believe the Bible.  I wish to
do what I can to rescue his name from theological defamation.  I
think the day has come when Thomas Paine will be remembered with
Washington, Franklin and Jefferson, and that the American people
will wonder that their fathers could have been guilty of such base
ingratitude.

--_Chicago Times_, February 8, 1880.


REPLY TO CHICAGO CRITICS.

_Question_.  Have you read the replies of the clergy to your recent
lecture in this city on "What Must we do to be Saved?" and if so
what do you think of them?

_Answer_.  I think they dodge the point.  The real point is this:
If salvation by faith is the real doctrine of Christianity, I asked
on Sunday before last, and I still ask, why didn't Matthew tell
it?  I still insist that Mark should have remembered it, and I
shall always believe that Luke ought, at least, to have noticed
it.  I was endeavoring to show that modern Christianity has for
its basis an interpolation.  I think I showed it.  The only gospel
on the orthodox side is that of John, and that was certainly not
written, or did not appear in its present form, until long after
the others were written.

I know very well that the Catholic Church claimed during the Dark
Ages, and still claims, that references had been made to the gospels
by persons living in the first, second, and third centuries; but
I believe such manuscripts were manufactured by the Catholic Church.
For many years in Europe there was not one person in twenty thousand
who could read and write.  During that time the church had in its
keeping the literature of our world.  They interpolated as they
pleased.  They created.  They destroyed.  In other words, they did
whatever in their opinion was necessary to substantiate the faith.

The gentlemen who saw fit to reply did not answer the question,
and I again call upon the clergy to explain to the people why, if
salvation depends upon belief on the Lord Jesus Christ, Matthew
didn't mention it.  Some one has said that Christ didn't make known
this doctrine of salvation by belief or faith until after his
resurrection.  Certainly none of the gospels were written until
after his resurrection; and if he made that doctrine known after
his resurrection, and before his ascension, it should have been
in Matthew, Mark, and Luke, as well as in John.

The replies of the clergy show that they have not investigated the
subject; that they are not well acquainted with the New Testament.
In other words, they have not read it except with the regulation
theological bias.

There is one thing I wish to correct here.  In an editorial in the
_Tribune_ it was stated that I had admitted that Christ was beyond
and above Buddha, Zoroaster, Confucius, and others.  I did not say
so.  Another point was made against me, and those who made it seemed
to think it was a good one.  In my lecture I asked why it was that
the disciples of Christ wrote in Greek, whereas, if fact, they
understood only Hebrew.  It is now claimed that Greek was the
language of Jerusalem at that time; that Hebrew had fallen into
disuse; that no one understood it except the literati and the highly
educated.  If I fell into an error upon this point it was because
I relied upon the New Testament.  I find in the twenty-first chapter
of the Acts an account of Paul having been mobbed in the city of
Jerusalem; that he was protected by a chief captain and some
soldiers; that, while upon the stairs of the castle to which he
was being taken for protection, he obtained leave from the captain
to speak unto the people.  In the fortieth verse of that chapter
I find the following:

"And when he had given him license, Paul stood on the stairs and
beckoned with the hand unto the people.  And when there was made
a great silence, he spake unto them in the Hebrew tongue, saying,"

And then follows the speech of Paul, wherein he gives an account of
his conversion.  It seems a little curious to me that Paul, for
the purpose of quieting a mob, would speak to that mob in an unknown
language.  If I were mobbed in the city of Chicago, and wished to
defend myself with an explanation, I certainly would not make that
explanation in Choctaw, even if I understood that tongue.  My
present opinion is that I would speak in English; and the reason
I would speak in English is because that language is generally
understood in this city, and so I conclude from the account in the
twenty-first chapter of the Acts that Hebrew was the language of
Jerusalem at that time, or Paul would not have addressed the mob
in that tongue.

_Question_.  Did you read Mr. Courtney's answer?

_Answer_.  I read what Mr. Courtney read from others, and think
some of his quotations very good; and have no doubt that the authors
will feel complimented by being quoted.  There certainly is no need
of my answering Dr. Courtney; sometime I may answer the French
gentlemen from whom he quoted.

_Question_.  But what about there being "belief" in Matthew?

_Answer_.  Mr. Courtney says that certain people were cured of
diseases on account of faith.  Admitting that mumps, measles, and
whooping-cough could be cured in that way, there is not even a
suggestion that salvation depended upon a like faith.  I think he
can hardly afford to rely upon the miracles of the New Testament
to prove his doctrine.  There is one instance in which a miracle
was performed by Christ without his knowledge; and I hardly think
that even Mr. Courtney would insist that any faith could have been
great enough for that.  The fact is, I believe that all these
miracles were ascribed to Christ long after his death, and that
Christ never, at any time or place, pretended to have any supernatural
power whatever.  Neither do I believe that he claimed any supernatural
origin.  He claimed simply to be a man; no less, no more.  I do
not believe Mr. Courtney is satisfied with his own reply.

_Question_.  And now as to Prof. Swing?

_Answer_.  Mr. Swing has been out of the orthodox church so long
that he seems to have forgotten the reasons for which he left it.
I do not believe there is an orthodox minister in the city of
Chicago who will agree with Mr. Swing that salvation by faith is
no longer preached.  Prof. Swing seems to think it of no importance
who wrote the gospel of Matthew.  In this I agree with him.  Judging
from what he said there is hardly difference enough of opinion
between us to justify a reply on his part.  He, however, makes one
mistake.  I did not in the lecture say one word about tearing down
churches.  I have no objection to people building all the churches
they wish.  While I admit it is a pretty sight to see children on
a morning in June going through the fields to the country church,
I still insist that the beauty of that sight does not answer the
question how it is that Matthew forgot to say anything about
salvation through Christ.  Prof. Swing is a man of poetic temperament,
but this is not a poetic question.

_Question_.  How did the card of Dr. Thomas strike you?

_Answer_.  I think the reply of Dr. Thomas is in the best possible
spirit.  I regard him to-day as the best intellect in the Methodist
denomination.  He seems to have what is generally understood as a
Christian spirit.  He has always treated me with perfect fairness,
and I should have said long ago many grateful things, had I not
feared I might hurt him with his own people.  He seems to be by
nature a perfectly fair man; and I know of no man in the United
States for whom I have a profounder respect.  Of course, I don't
agree with Dr. Thomas.  I think in many things he is mistaken.
But I believe him to be perfectly sincere.  There is one trouble
about him--he is growing; and this fact will no doubt give great
trouble to many of his brethren.  Certain Methodist hazel-brush
feel a little uneasy in the shadow of this oak.  To see the difference
between him and some others, all that is necessary is to read his
reply, and then read the remarks made at the Methodist ministers'
meeting on the Monday following.  Compared with Dr. Thomas, they
are as puddles by the sea.  There is the same difference that there
is between sewers and rivers, cesspools and springs.

_Question_.  What have you to say to the remarks of the Rev. Dr.
Jewett before the Methodist ministers' meeting?

_Answer_.  I think Dr. Jewett is extremely foolish.  I did not say
that I would commence suit against a minister for libel.  I can
hardly conceive of a proceeding that would be less liable to produce
a dividend.  The fact about it is, that the Rev. Mr. Jewett seems
to think anything true that he hears against me.  Mr. Jewett is
probably ashamed of what he said by this time.  He must have known
it to be entirely false.  It seems to me by this time even the most
bigoted should lose their confidence in falsehood.  Of course there
are times when a falsehood well told bridges over quite a difficulty,
but in the long run you had better tell the truth, even if you swim
the creek.  I am astonished that these ministers were willing to
exhibit their wounds to the world.  I supposed of course I would
hit some, but I had no idea of wounding so many.

_Question_.  Mr. Crafts stated that you were in the habit of swearing
in company and before your family?

_Answer_.  I often swear.  In other words, I take the name of God
in vain; that is to say, I take it without any practical thing
resulting from it, and in that sense I think most ministers are
guilty of the same thing.  I heard an old story of a clergyman who
rebuked a neighbor for swearing, to whom the neighbor replied, "You
pray and I swear, but as a matter of fact neither of us means
anything by it."  As to the charge that I am in the habit of using
indecent language in my family, no reply is needed.  I am willing
to leave that question to the people who know us both.  Mr. Crafts
says he was told this by a lady.  This cannot by any possibility
be true, for no lady will tell a falsehood.  Besides, if this woman
of whom he speaks was a lady, how did she happen to stay where
obscene language was being used?  No lady ever told Mr. Crafts any
such thing.  It may be that a lady did tell him that I used profane
language.  I admit that I have not always spoken of the Devil in
a respectful way; that I have sometimes referred to his residence
when it was not a necessary part of the conversation, and that a
divers times I have used a good deal of the terminology of the
theologian when the exact words of the scientist might have done
as well.  But if by swearing is meant the use of God's name in
vain, there are very few preachers who do not swear more than I
do, if by "in vain" is meant without any practical result.  I leave
Mr. Crafts to cultivate the acquaintance of the unknown lady,
knowing as I do, that after they have talked this matter over again
they will find that both have been mistaken.

I sincerely regret that clergymen who really believe that an infinite
God is on their side think it necessary to resort to such things
to defeat one man.  According to their idea, God is against me,
and they ought to have confidence in this infinite wisdom and
strength to suppose that he could dispose of one man, even if they
failed to say a word against me.  Had you not asked me I should
have said nothing to you on these topics.  Such charges cannot hurt
me.  I do not believe it possible for such men to injure me.  No
one believes what they say, and the testimony of such clergymen
against an Infidel is no longer considered of value.  I believe it
was Goethe who said, "I always know that I am traveling when I hear
the dogs bark."

_Question_.  Are you going to make a formal reply to their sermons?

_Answer_.  Not unless something better is done than has been.  Of
course, I don't know what another Sabbath may bring forth.  I am
waiting.  But of one thing I feel perfectly assured; that no man
in the United States, or in the world, can account for the fact,
if we are to be saved only by faith in Christ, that Matthew forgot
it, that Luke said nothing about it, and that Mark never mentioned
it except in two passages written by _another_ person.  Until that
is answered, as one grave-digger says to the other in "Hamlet," I
shall say, "Ay, tell me that and unyoke."  In the meantime I wish
to keep on the best terms with all parties concerned.  I cannot
see why my forgiving spirit fails to gain their sincere praise.

--_Chicago Tribune_, September 30, 1880.


THE REPUBLICAN VICTORY.

_Question_.  Do you really think, Colonel, that the country has
just passed through a crisis?

_Answer_.  Yes; there was a crisis and a great one.  The question
was whether a Northern or Southern idea of the powers and duties
of the Federal Government was to prevail.  The great victory of
yesterday means that the Rebellion was not put down on the field
of war alone, but that we have conquered in the realm of thought.
The bayonet has been justified by argument.  No party can ever
succeed in this country that even whispers "State Sovereignty."
That doctrine has become odious.  The sovereignty of the State
means a Government without power, and citizens without protection.

_Question_.  Can you see any further significance in the present
Republican victory other than that the people do not wish to change
the general policy of the present administration?

_Answer_.  Yes; the people have concluded that the lips of America
shall be free.  There never was free speech at the South, and there
never will be until the people of that section admit that the Nation
is superior to the State, and that all citizens have equal rights.
I know of hundreds who voted the Republican ticket because they
regarded the South as hostile to free speech.  The people were
satisfied with the financial policy of the Republicans, and they
feared a change.  The North wants honest money--gold and silver.
The people are in favor of honest votes, and they feared the
practices of the Democratic party.  The tissue ballot and shotgun
policy made them hesitate to put power in the hands of the South.
Besides, the tariff question made thousands and thousands of votes.
As long as Europe has slave labor, and wherever kings and priests
rule, the laborer will be substantially a slave.  We must protect
ourselves.  If the world were free, trade would be free, and the
seas would be the free highways of the world.  The great objects
of the Republican party are to preserve all the liberty we have,
protect American labor, and to make it the undisputed duty of the
Government to protect every citizen at home and abroad.

_Question_.  What do you think was the main cause of the Republican
sweep?

_Answer_.  The wisdom of the Republicans and the mistakes of the
Democrats.  The Democratic party has for twenty years underrated
the intelligence, the patriotism and the honesty of the American
people.  That party has always looked upon politics as a trade,
and success as the last act of a cunning trick.  It has had no
principles, fixed or otherwise.  It has always been willing to
abandon everything but its prejudices.  It generally commences
where it left off and then goes backward.  In this campaign English
was a mistake, Hancock was another.  Nothing could have been more
incongruous than yoking a Federal soldier with a peace-at-any-price
Democrat.  Neither could praise the other without slandering himself,
and the blindest partisan could not like them both.  But, after
all, I regard the military record of English as fully equal to the
views of General Hancock on the tariff.  The greatest mistake that
the Democratic party made was to suppose that a campaign could be
fought and won by slander.  The American people like fair play and
they abhor ignorant and absurd vituperation.  The continent knew
that General Garfield was an honest man; that he was in the grandest
sense a gentleman; that he was patriotic, profound and learned;
that his private life was pure; that his home life was good and
kind and true, and all the charges made and howled and screeched
and printed and sworn to harmed only those who did the making and
the howling, the screeching and the swearing.  I never knew a man
in whose perfect integrity I had more perfect confidence, and in
less than one year even the men who have slandered him will agree
with me.

_Question_.  How about that "personal and confidential letter"?
(The Morey letter.)

_Answer_.  It was as stupid, as devilish, as basely born as
godfathered.  It is an exploded forgery, and the explosion leaves
dead and torn upon the field the author and his witnesses.

_Question_.  Is there anything in the charge that the Republican
party seeks to change our form of government by gradual centralization?

_Answer_.  Nothing whatever.  We want power enough in the Government
to protect, not to destroy, the liberties of the people.  The
history of the world shows that burglars have always opposed an
increase of the police.

--_New York Herald_, November 5, 1880.


INGERSOLL AND BEECHER.*

[* The sensation created by the speech of the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher
at the Academy of Music, in Brooklyn, when he uttered a brilliant eulogy
of Col. Robert Ingersoll and publicly shook hands with him has not yet
subsided.  A portion of the religious world is thoroughly stirred up at
what it considers a gross breach of orthodox propriety.  This feeling
is especially strong among the class of positivists who believe that

  "An Atheist's laugh's a poor exchange
   For Deity offended."

Many believe that Mr. Beecher is at heart in full sympathy and
accord with Ingersoll's teachings, but has not courage enough to
say so at the sacrifice of his pastoral position.  The fact that
these two men are the very head and front of their respective
schools of thought makes the matter an important one.  The denouncement
of the doctrine of eternal punishment, followed by the scene at
the Academy, has about it an aroma of suggestiveness that might
work much harm without an explanation.  Since Colonel Ingersoll's
recent attack upon the _personnel_ of the clergy through the "Shorter
Catechism" the pulpit has been remarkably silent regarding the
great atheist.  "Is the keen logic and broad humanity of Ingersoll
converting the brain and heart of Christendom?" was recently asked.
Did the hand that was stretched out to him on the stage of the
Academy reach across the chasm which separates orthodoxy from
infidelity?

Desiring to answer the last question if possible, a _Herald_ reporter
visited Mr. Beecher and Colonel Ingersoll to learn their opinion
of each other.  Neither of the gentlemen was aware that the other
was being interviewed.]

_Question_.  What is your opinion of Mr. Beecher?

_Answer_.  I regard him as the greatest man in any pulpit of the
world.  He treated me with a generosity that nothing can exceed.
He rose grandly above the prejudices supposed to belong to his
class, and acted as only a man could act without a chain upon his
brain and only kindness in his heart.

I told him that night that I congratulated the world that it had
a minister with an intellectual horizon broad enough and a mental
sky studded with stars of genius enough to hold all creeds in scorn
that shocked the heart of man.  I think that Mr. Beecher has
liberalized the English-speaking people of the world.

I do not think he agrees with me.  He holds to many things that I
most passionately deny.  But in common, we believe in the liberty
of thought.

My principal objections to orthodox religion are two--slavery here
and hell hereafter.  I do not believe that Mr. Beecher on these
points can disagree with me.  The real difference between us is--
he says God, I say Nature.  The real agreement between us is--we
both say--Liberty.

_Question_.  What is his forte?

_Answer_.  He is of a wonderfully poetic temperament.  In pursuing
any course of thought his mind is like a stream flowing through
the scenery of fairyland.  The stream murmurs and laughs while the
banks grow green and the vines blossom.

His brain is controlled by his heart.  He thinks in pictures.  With
him logic means mental melody.  The discordant is the absurd.

For years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon of orthodoxy with
the ivy of imagination.  Now and then he pulls for a moment the
leafy curtain aside and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes,
basilisks and abnormal monsters of the orthodox age, and then he
utters a great cry, the protest of a loving, throbbing heart.

He is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, in my judgment,
greater and grander than any creed of any church.

Besides all this, he treated me like a king.  Manhood is his forte,
and I expect to live and die his friend.

BEECHER ON INGERSOLL.

_Question_.  What is your opinion of Colonel Ingersoll?

_Answer_.  I do not think there should be any misconception as to
my motive for indorsing Mr. Ingersoll.  I never saw him before that
night, when I clasped his hand in the presence of an assemblage of
citizens.  Yet I regard him as one of the greatest men of this age.

_Question_.  Is his influence upon the world good or otherwise?

_Answer_.  I am an ordained clergyman and believe in revealed
religion.  I am, therefore, bound to regard all persons who do not
believe in revealed religion as in error.  But on the broad platform
of human liberty and progress I was bound to give him the right
hand of fellowship.  I would do it a thousand times over.  I do
not know Colonel Ingersoll's religious views precisely, but I have
a general knowledge of them.  He has the same right to free thought
and free speech that I have.  I am not that kind of a coward who
has to kick a man before he shakes hands with him.  If I did so I
would have to kick the Methodists, Roman Catholics and all other
creeds.  I will not pitch into any man's religion as an excuse for
giving him my hand.  I admire Ingersoll because he is not afraid
to speak what he honestly thinks, and I am only sorry that he does
not think as I do.  I never heard so much brilliancy and pith put
into a two hour speech as I did on that night.  I wish my whole
congregation had been there to hear it.  I regret that there are
not more men like Ingersoll interested in the affairs of the nation.
I do not wish to be understood as indorsing skepticism in any form.

--_New York Herald_, November 7, 1880.


POLITICAL.

_Question_.  Is it true, as rumored, that you intend to leave
Washington and reside in New York?

_Answer_.  No, I expect to remain here for years to come, so far
as I can now see.  My present intention is certainly to stay here
during the coming winter.

_Question_.  Is this because you regard Washington as the pleasantest
and most advantageous city for a residence?

_Answer_.  Well, in the first place, I dislike to move.  In the
next place, the climate is good.  In the third place, the political
atmosphere has been growing better of late, and when you consider
that I avoid one dislike and reap the benefits of two likes, you
can see why I remain.

_Question_.  Do you think that the moral atmosphere will improve
with the political atmosphere?

_Answer_.  I would hate to say that this city is capable of any
improvement in the way of morality.  We have a great many churches,
a great many ministers, and, I believe, some retired chaplains, so
I take it that the moral tone of the place could hardly be bettered.
One majority in the Senate might help it.  Seriously, however, I
think that Washington has as high a standard of morality as any
city in the Union.  And it is one of the best towns in which to
loan money without collateral in the world.

_Question_.  Do you know this from experience?

_Answer_.  This I have been told [was the solemn answer.]

_Question_.  Do you think that the political features of the incoming
administration will differ from the present?

_Answer_.  Of course, I have no right to speak for General Garfield.
I believe his administration will be Republican, at the same time
perfectly kind, manly, and generous.  He is a man to harbor no
resentment.  He knows that it is the duty of statesmanship to remove
causes of irritation rather then punish the irritated.

_Question_.  Do I understand you to imply that there will be a
neutral policy, as it were, towards the South?

_Answer_.  No, I think that there will be nothing neutral about
it.  I think that the next administration will be one-sided--that
is, it will be on the right side.  I know of no better definition
for a compromise than to say it is a proceeding in which hypocrites
deceive each other.  I do not believe that the incoming administration
will be neutral in anything.  The American people do not like
neutrality.  They would rather a man were on the wrong side than
on neither.  And, in my judgment, there is no paper so utterly
unfair, malicious and devilish, as one that claims to be neutral.
No politician is as bitter as a neutral politician.  Neutrality is
generally used as a mask to hide unusual bitterness.  Sometimes it
hides what it is--nothing.  It always stands for hollowness of head
or bitterness of heart, sometimes for both.  My idea is--and that
is the only reason I have the right to express it--that General
Garfield believes in the platform adopted by the Republican party.
He believes in free speech, in honest money, in divorce of church
and state, and he believes in the protection of American citizens
by the Federal Government wherever the flag flies.  He believes
that the Federal Government is as much bound to protect the citizen
at home as abroad.  I believe he will do the very best he can to
carry these great ideas into execution and make them living realities
in the United States.  Personally, I have no hatred toward the
Southern people.  I have no hatred toward any class.  I hate tyranny,
no matter whether it is South or North; I hate hypocrisy, and I
hate above all things, the spirit of caste.  If the Southern people
could only see that they gained as great a victory in the Rebellion
as the North did, and some day they will see it, the whole question
would be settled.  The South has reaped a far greater benefit from
being defeated than the North has from being successful, and I
believe some day the South will be great enough to appreciate that
fact.  I have always insisted that to be beaten by the right is to
be a victor.  The Southern people must get over the idea that they
are insulted simply because they are out-voted, and they ought by
this time to know that the Republicans of the North, not only do
not wish them harm, but really wish them the utmost success.

_Question_.  But has the Republican party all the good and the
Democratic all the bad?

_Answer_.  No, I do not think that the Republican party has all
the good, nor do I pretend that the Democratic party has all the
bad; though I may say that each party comes pretty near it.  I
admit that there are thousands of really good fellows in the
Democratic party, and there are some pretty bad people in the
Republican party.  But I honestly believe that within the latter
are most of the progressive men of this country.  That party has
in it the elements of growth.  It is full of hope.  It anticipates.
The Democratic party remembers. It is always talking about the
past.  It is the possessor of a vast amount of political rubbish,
and I really believe it has outlived its usefulness.  I firmly
believe that your editor, Mr. Hutchings, could start a better
organization, if he would only turn his attention to it.  Just
think for a moment of the number you could get rid of by starting
a new party.  A hundred names will probably suggest themselves to
any intelligent Democrat, the loss of which would almost insure
success.  Some one has said that a tailor in Boston made a fortune
by advertising that he did not cut the breeches of Webster's statue.
A new party by advertising that certain men would not belong to
it, would have an advantage in the next race.

_Question_.  What, in your opinion, were the causes which led to
the Democratic defeat?

_Answer_.  I think the nomination of English was exceedingly
unfortunate.  Indiana, being an October State, the best man in that
State should have been nominated either for President or Vice-
President.  Personally, I know nothing of Mr. English, but I have
the right to say that he was exceedingly unpopular.  That was
mistake number one.  Mistake number two was putting a plank in the
platform insisting upon a tariff for revenue only.  That little
word "only" was one of the most frightful mistakes ever made by a
political party.  That little word "only" was a millstone around
the neck of the entire campaign.  The third mistake was Hancock's
definition of the tariff.  It was exceedingly unfortunate, exceedingly
laughable, and came just in the nick of time.  The fourth mistake
was the speech of Wade Hampton, I mean the speech that the Republican
papers claim he made.  Of course I do not know, personally, whether
it was made or not.  If made, it was a great mistake.  Mistake
number five was made in Alabama, where they refused to allow a
Greenbacker to express his opinion.  That lost the Democrats enough
Greenbackers to turn the scale in Maine, and enough in Indiana to
change that election.  Mistake number six was in the charges made
against General Garfield.  They were insisted upon, magnified and
multiplied until at last the whole thing assumed the proportions
of a malicious libel.  This was a great mistake, for the reason
that a number of Democrats in the United States had most heartily
and cordially indorsed General Garfield as a man of integrity and
great ability.  Such indorsements had been made by the leading
Democrats of the North and South, among them Governor Hendricks
and many others I might name.  Jere Black had also certified to
the integrity and intellectual grandeur of General Garfield, and
when afterward he certified to the exact contrary, the people
believed that it was a persecution.  The next mistake, number seven,
was the Chinese letter.  While it lost Garfield California, Nevada,
and probably New Jersey, it did him good in New York.  This letter
was the greatest mistake made, because a crime is greater than a
mistake.  These, in my judgment, are the principal mistakes made
by the Democratic party in the campaign.  Had McDonald been on the
ticket the result might have been different, or had the party united
on some man in New York, satisfactory to the factions, it might
have succeeded.  The truth, however, is that the North to-day is
Republican, and it may be that had the Democratic party made no
mistakes whatever the result would have been the same.  But that
mistakes were made is now perfectly evident to the blindest partisan.
If the ticket originally suggested, Seymour and McDonald, had been
nominated on an unobjectionable platform, the result might have
been different. One of the happiest days in my life was the day on
which the Cincinnati convention did not nominate Seymour and did
nominate English.  I regard General Hancock as a good soldier, but
not particularly qualified to act as President.  He has neither
the intellectual training nor the experience to qualify him for
that place.

_Question_.  You have doubtless heard of a new party, Colonel.
What is your idea in regard to it?

_Answer_.  I have heard two or three speak of a new party to be
called the National party, or National Union party, but whether
there is anything in such a movement I have no means of knowing.
Any party in opposition to the Republican, no matter what it may
be called, must win on a new issue, and that new issue will determine
the new party.  Parties cannot be made to order.  They must grow.
They are the natural offspring of national events.  They must embody
certain hopes, they must gratify, or promise to gratify, the feelings
of a vast number of people.  No man can make a party, and if a new
party springs into existence it will not be brought forth to gratify
the wishes of a few, but the wants of the many.  It has seemed to
me for years that the Democratic party carried too great a load in
the shape of record; that its autobiography was nearly killing it
all the time, and that if it could die just long enough to assume
another form at the resurrection, just long enough to leave a grave
stone to mark the end of its history, to get a cemetery back of
it, that it might hope for something like success.  In other words,
that there must be a funeral before there can be victory.  Most of
its leaders are worn out.  They have become so accustomed to defeat
that they take it as a matter of course; they expect it in the
beginning and seem unconsciously to work for it.  There must be
some new ideas, and this only can happen when the party as such
has been gathered to its fathers.  I do not think that the advice
of Senator Hill will be followed.  He is willing to kill the
Democratic party in the South if we will kill the Republican party
in the North.  This puts me in mind of what the rooster said to
the horse:  "Let us agree not to step on each other's feet."

_Question_.  Your views of the country's future and prospects must
naturally be rose colored?

_Answer_.  Of course, I look at things through Republican eyes and
may be prejudiced without knowing it.  But it really seems to me
that the future is full of great promise.  The South, after all,
is growing more prosperous.  It is producing more and more every
year, until in time it will become wealthy.  The West is growing
almost beyond the imagination of a speculator, and the Eastern and
Middle States are much more than holding their own.  We have now
fifty millions of people and in a few years will have a hundred.
That we are a Nation I think is now settled.  Our growth will be
unparalleled.  I myself expect to live to see as many ships on the
Pacific as on the Atlantic.  In a few years there will probably be
ten millions of people living along the Rocky and Sierra Mountains.
It will not be long until Illinois will find her market west of
her.  In fifty years this will be the greatest nation on the earth,
and the most populous in the civilized world.  China is slowly
awakening from the lethargy of centuries.  It will soon have the
wants of Europe, and America will supply those wants.  This is a
nation of inventors and there is more mechanical ingenuity in the
United States than on the rest of the globe.  In my judgment this
country will in a short time add to its customers hundreds of
millions of the people of the Celestial Empire.  So you see, to
me, the future is exceedingly bright.  And besides all this, I must
not forget the thing that is always nearest my heart.  There is
more intellectual liberty in the United States to-day than ever
before.  The people are beginning to see that every citizen ought
to have the right to express himself freely upon every possible
subject.  In a little while, all the barbarous laws that now disgrace
the statute books of the States by discriminating against a man
simply because he is honest, will be repealed, and there will be
one country where all citizens will have and enjoy not only equal
rights, but all rights.  Nothing gratifies me so much as the growth
of intellectual liberty.  After all, the true civilization is where
every man gives to every other, every right that he claims for
himself.

--_The Post_, Washington, D. C., November 14, 1880.


RELIGION IN POLITICS.

_Question_.  How do you regard the present political situation?

_Answer_.  My opinion is that the ideas the North fought for upon
the field have at last triumphed at the ballot-box.  For several
years after the Rebellion was put down the Southern ideas traveled
North.  We lost West Virginia, New Jersey, Connecticut, New York
and a great many congressional districts in other States.  We lost
both houses of Congress and every Southern State.  The Southern
ideas reached their climax in 1876.  In my judgment the tide has
turned, and hereafter the Northern idea is going South.  The young
men are on the Republican side.  The old Democrats are dying.  The
cradle is beating the coffin.  It is a case of life and death, and
life is ahead.  The heirs outnumber the administrators.

_Question_.  What kind of a President will Garfield make?

_Answer_.  My opinion is that he will make as good a President as
this nation ever had.  He is fully equipped.  He is a trained
statesman.  He has discussed all the great questions that have
arisen for the last eighteen years, and with great ability.  He is
a thorough scholar, a conscientious student, and takes an exceedingly
comprehensive survey of all questions.  He is genial, generous and
candid, and has all the necessary qualities of heart and brain to
make a great President.  He has no prejudices.  Prejudice is the
child and flatterer of ignorance.  He is firm, but not obstinate.
The obstinate man wants his own way; the firm man stands by the
right.  Andrew Johnson was obstinate--Lincoln was firm.

_Question_.  How do you think he will treat the South?

_Answer_.  Just the same as the North.  He will be the President
of the whole country.  He will not execute the laws by the compass,
but according to the Constitution.  I do not speak for General
Garfield, nor by any authority from his friends.  No one wishes to
injure the South.  The Republican party feels in honor bound to
protect all citizens, white and black.  It must do this in order
to keep its self-respect.  It must throw the shield of the Nation
over the weakest, the humblest and the blackest citizen.  Any other
course is suicide.  No thoughtful Southern man can object to this,
and a Northern Democrat knows that it is right.

_Question_.  Is there a probability that Mr. Sherman will be retained
in the Cabinet?

_Answer_.  I have no knowledge upon that question, and consequently
have nothing to say.  My opinion about the Cabinet is, that General
Garfield is well enough acquainted with public men to choose a
Cabinet that will suit him and the country.  I have never regarded
it as the proper thing to try and force a Cabinet upon a President.
He has the right to be surrounded by his friends, by men in whose
judgment and in whose friendship he has the utmost confidence, and
I would no more think of trying to put some man in the Cabinet that
I would think of signing a petition that a man should marry a
certain woman.  General Garfield will, I believe, select his own
constitutional advisers, and he will take the best he knows.

_Question_.  What, in your opinion, is the condition of the Democratic
party at present?

_Answer_.  It must get a new set of principles, and throw away its
prejudices.  It must demonstrate its capacity to govern the country
by governing the States where it is in power.  In the presence of
rebellion it gave up the ship.  The South must become Republican
before the North will willingly give it power; that is, the great
ideas of nationality are greater than parties, and if our flag is
not large enough to protect every citizen, we must add a few more
stars and stripes.  Personally I have no hatreds in this matter.
The present is not only the child of the past, but the necessary
child.  A statesman must deal with things as they are.  He must
not be like Gladstone, who divides his time between foreign wars
and amendments to the English Book of Common Prayer.

_Question_.  How do you regard the religious question in politics?

_Answer_.  Religion is a personal matter--a matter that each
individual soul should be allowed to settle for itself.  No man
shod in the brogans of impudence should walk into the temple of
another man's soul.  While every man should be governed by the
highest possible considerations of the public weal, no one has the
right to ask for legal assistance in the support of his particular
sect.  If Catholics oppose the public schools I would not oppose
them because they are Catholics, but because I am in favor of the
schools.  I regard the public school as the intellectual bread of
life.  Personally I have no confidence in any religion that can be
demonstrated only to children.  I suspect all creeds that rely
implicitly on mothers and nurses.  That religion is the best that
commends itself the strongest to men and women of education and
genius.  After all, the prejudices of infancy and the ignorance of
the aged are a poor foundation for any system of morals or faith.
I respect every honest man, and I think more of a liberal Catholic
than of an illiberal Infidel.  The religious question should be
left out of politics.  You might as well decide questions of art
and music by a ward caucus as to govern the longings and dreams of
the soul by law.  I believe in letting the sun shine whether the
weeds grow or not.  I can never side with Protestants if they try
to put Catholics down by law, and I expect to oppose both of these
until religious intolerance is regarded as a crime.

_Question_.  Is the religious movement of which you are the chief
exponent spreading?

_Answer_.  There are ten times as many Freethinkers this year as
there were last.  Civilization is the child of free thought.  The
new world has drifted away from the rotting 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.  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.

The election is over, the passions aroused by the campaign will
soon subside, the sober judgment of the people will, in my opinion,
indorse the result, and time will indorse the indorsement.

--_The Evening Express_, New York City, November 19, 1880.


MIRACLES AND IMMORTALITY.

_Question_.  You have seen some accounts of the recent sermon of
Dr. Tyng on "Miracles," I presume, and if so, what is your opinion
of the sermon, and also what is your opinion of miracles?

_Answer_.  From an orthodox standpoint, I think the Rev. Dr. Tyng
is right.  If miracles were necessary eighteen hundred years ago,
before scientific facts enough were known to overthrow hundreds
and thousands of passages in the Bible, certainly they are necessary
now.  Dr. Tyng sees clearly that the old miracles are nearly worn
out, and that some new ones are absolutely essential.  He takes
for granted that, if God would do a miracle to found his gospel,
he certainly would do some more to preserve it, and that it is in
need of preservation about now is evident.  I am amazed that the
religious world should laugh at him for believing in miracles.  It
seems to me just as reasonable that the deaf, dumb, blind and lame,
should be cured at Lourdes as at Palestine.  It certainly is no
more wonderful that the law of nature should be broken now than
that it was broken several thousand years ago.  Dr. Tyng also has
this advantage.  The witnesses by whom he proves these miracles
are alive.  An unbeliever can have the opportunity of cross-
examination.  Whereas, the miracles in the New Testament are
substantiated only by the dead.  It is just as reasonable to me
that blind people receive their sight in France as that devils were
made to vacate human bodies in the holy land.

For one I am exceedingly glad that Dr. Tyng has taken this position.
It shows that he is a believer in a personal God, in a God who is
attending a little to the affairs of this world, and in a God who
did not exhaust his supplies in the apostolic age.  It is refreshing
to me to find in this scientific age a gentleman who still believes
in miracles.  My opinion is that all thorough religionists will have
to take the ground and admit that a supernatural religion must be
supernaturally preserved.

I have been asking for a miracle for several years, and have in a
very mild, gentle and loving way, taunted the church for not
producing a little one.  I have had the impudence to ask any number
of them to join in a prayer asking anything they desire for the
purpose of testing the efficiency of what is known as supplication.
They answer me by calling my attention to the miracles recorded in
the New Testament.  I insist, however, on a new miracle, and,
personally, I would like to see one now.  Certainly, the Infinite
has not lost his power, and certainly the Infinite knows that
thousands and hundreds of thousands, if the Bible is true, are now
pouring over the precipice of unbelief into the gulf of hell.  One
little miracle would save thousands.  One little miracle in Pittsburg,
well authenticated, would do more good than all the preaching ever
heard in this sooty town.  The Rev. Dr. Tyng clearly sees this,
and he has been driven to the conclusion, first, that God can do
miracles; second, that he ought to, third, that he has.  In this
he is perfectly logical.  After a man believes the Bible, after he
believes in the flood and in the story of Jonah, certainly he ought
not to hesitate at a miracle of to-day.  When I say I want a miracle,
I mean by that, I want a good one.  All the miracles recorded in
the New Testament could have been simulated.  A fellow could have
pretended to be dead, or blind, or dumb, or deaf.  I want to see
a good miracle.  I want to see a man with one leg, and then I want
to see the other leg grow out.

I would like to see a miracle like that performed in North Carolina.
Two men were disputing about the relative merits of the salve they
had for sale.  One of the men, in order to demonstrate that his
salve was better than any other, cut off a dog's tail and applied
a little of the salve to the stump, and, in the presence of the
spectators, a new tail grew out.  But the other man, who also had
salve for sale, took up the piece of tail that had been cast away,
put a little salve at the end of that, and a new dog grew out, and
the last heard of those parties they were quarrelling as to who
owned the second dog.  Something like that is what I call a miracle.

_Question_.  What do you believe about the immortality of the soul?
Do you believe that the spirit lives as an individual after the
body is dead?

_Answer_.  I have said a great many times that it is no more
wonderful that we should live again than that we do live.  Sometimes
I have thought it not quite so wonderful for the reason that we
have a start.  But upon that subject I have not the slightest
information.  Whether man lives again or not I cannot pretend to
say.  There may be another world and there may not be.  If there
is another world we ought to make the best of it after arriving
there.  If there is not another world, or if there is another world,
we ought to make the best of this.  And since nobody knows, all
should be permitted to have their opinions, and my opinion is that
nobody knows.

If we take the Old Testament for authority, man is not immortal.
The Old Testament shows man how he lost immortality.  According to
Genesis, God prevented man from putting forth his hand and eating
of the Tree of Life.  It is there stated, had he succeeded, man
would have lived forever.  God drove him from the garden, preventing
him eating of this tree, and in consequence man became mortal; so
that if we go by the Old Testament we are compelled to give up
immortality.  The New Testament has but little on the subject.  In
one place we are told to seek for immortality.  If we are already
immortal, it is hard to see why we should go on seeking for it.
In another place we are told that they who are worthy to obtain
that world and the resurrection of the dead, are not given in
marriage.  From this one would infer there would be some unworthy
to be raised from the dead.  Upon the question of immortality, the
Old Testament throws but little satisfactory light.  I do not deny
immortality, nor would I endeavor to shake the belief of anybody
in another life.  What I am endeavoring to do is to put out the
fires of hell.  If we cannot have heaven without hell, I am in
favor of abolishing heaven.  I do not want to go to heaven if one
soul is doomed to agony.  I would rather be annihilated.

My opinion of immortality is this:

First.--I live, and that of itself is infinitely wonderful.

Second.--There was a time when I was not, and after I was not, I
was.  Third.--Now that I am, I may be again; and it is no more
wonderful that I may be again, if I have been, than that I am,
having once been nothing.  If the churches advocated immortality,
if they advocated eternal justice, if they said that man would be
rewarded and punished according to deeds; if they admitted that
some time in eternity there would be an opportunity given to lift
up souls, and that throughout all the ages the angels of progress
and virtue would beckon the fallen upward; and that some time, and
no matter how far away they might put off the time, all the children
of men would be reasonably happy, I never would say a solitary word
against the church, but just as long as they preach that the majority
of mankind will suffer eternal pain, just so long I shall oppose
them; that is to say, as long as I live.

_Question_.  Do you believe in a God; and, if so, what kind of a
God?

_Answer_.  Let me, in the first place, lay a foundation for an
answer.

First.--Man gets all food for thought through the medium of the
senses.  The effect of nature upon the senses, and through the
senses upon the brain, must be natural.  All food for thought,
then, is natural.  As a consequence of this, there can be no
supernatural idea in the human brain.  Whatever idea there is must
have been a natural product.  If, then, there is no supernatural
idea in the human brain, then there cannot be in the human brain
an idea of the supernatural.  If we can have no idea of the
supernatural, and if the God of whom you spoke is admitted to be
supernatural, then, of course, I can have no idea of him, and I
certainly can have no very fixed belief on any subject about which
I have no idea.

There may be a God for all I know.  There may be thousands of them.
But the idea of an infinite Being outside and independent of nature
is inconceivable.  I do not know of any word that would explain my
doctrine or my views upon the subject.  I suppose Pantheism is as
near as I could go.  I believe in the eternity of matter and in
the eternity of intelligence, but I do not believe in any Being
outside of nature.  I do not believe in any personal Deity.  I do
not believe in any aristocracy of the air.  I know nothing about
origin or destiny.  Between these two horizons I live, whether I
wish to or not, and must be satisfied with what I find between
these two horizons.  I have never heard any God described that I
believe in.  I have never heard any religion explained that I
accept.  To make something out of nothing cannot be more absurd
than that an infinite intelligence made this world, and proceeded
to fill it with crime and want and agony, and then, not satisfied
with the evil he had wrought, made a hell in which to consummate
the great mistake.

_Question_.  Do you believe that the world, and all that is in it
came by chance?

_Answer_.  I do not believe anything comes by chance.  I regard
the present as the necessary child of a necessary past.  I believe
matter is eternal; that it has eternally existed and eternally will
exist.  I believe that in all matter, in some way, there is what
we call force; that one of the forms of force is intelligence.  I
believe that whatever is in the universe has existed from eternity
and will forever exist.

Secondly.--I exclude from my philosophy all ideas of chance.  Matter
changes eternally its form, never its essence.  You cannot conceive
of anything being created.  No one can conceive of anything existing
without a cause or with a cause.  Let me explain; a thing is not
a cause until an effect has been produced; so that, after all,
cause and effect are twins coming into life at precisely the same
instant, born of the womb of an unknown mother.  The Universe in
the only fact, and everything that ever has happened, is happening,
or will happen, are but the different aspects of the one eternal
fact.

--_The Dispatch_, Pittsburg, Pa., December 11, 1880.


THE POLITICAL OUTLOOK.

_Question_.  What phases will the Southern question assume in the
next four years?

_Answer_.  The next Congress should promptly unseat every member
of Congress in whose district there was not a fair and honest
election.  That is the first hard work to be done.  Let notice, in
this way, be given to the whole country, that fraud cannot succeed.
No man should be allowed to hold a seat by force or fraud.  Just
as soon as it is understood that fraud is useless it will be
abandoned.  In that way the honest voters of the whole country can
be protected.

An honest vote settles the Southern question, and Congress has the
power to compel an honest vote, or to leave the dishonest districts
without representation.  I want this policy adopted, not only in
the South, but in the North.  No man touched or stained with fraud
should be allowed to hold his seat.  Send such men home, and let
them stay there until sent back by honest votes.  The Southern
question is a Northern question, and the Republican party must
settle it for all time.  We must have honest elections, or the
Republic must fall.  Illegal voting must be considered and punished
as a crime.

Taking one hundred and seventy thousand as the basis of representation,
the South, through her astounding increase of colored population,
gains three electoral votes, while the North and East lose three.
Garfield was elected by the thirty thousand colored votes cast in
New York.

_Question_.  Will the negro continue to be the balance of power,
and if so, will it inure to his benefit?

_Answer_.  The more political power the colored man has the better
he will be treated, and if he ever holds the balance of power he
will be treated as well as the balance of our citizens.  My idea
is that the colored man should stand on an equality with the white
before the law; that he should honestly be protected in all his
rights; that he should be allowed to vote, and that his vote should
be counted.  It is a simple question of honesty.  The colored people
are doing well; they are industrious; they are trying to get an
education, and, on the whole, I think they are behaving fully as
well as the whites.  They are the most forgiving people in the
world, and about the only real Christians in our country.  They
have suffered enough, and for one I am on their side.  I think more
of honest black people than of dishonest whites, to say the least
of it.

_Question_.  Do you apprehend any trouble from the Southern leaders
in this closing session of Congress, in attempts to force pernicious
legislation?

_Answer_.  I do not.  The Southern leaders know that the doctrine
of State Sovereignty is dead.  They know that they cannot depend
upon the Northern Democrat, and they know that the best interests
of the South can only be preserved by admitting that the war settled
the questions and ideas fought for and against.  They know that
this country is a Nation, and that no party can possibly succeed
that advocates anything contrary to that.  My own opinion is that
most of the Southern leaders are heartily ashamed of the course
pursued by their Northern friends, and will take the first opportunity
to say so.

_Question_.  In what light do you regard the Chinaman?

_Answer_.  I am opposed to compulsory immigration, or cooley or
slave immigration.  If Chinamen are sent to this country by
corporations or companies under contracts that amount to slavery
or anything like it or near it, then I am opposed to it.  But I am
not prepared to say that I would be opposed to voluntary immigration.
I see by the papers that a new treaty has been agreed upon that
will probably be ratified and be satisfactory to all parties.  We
ought to treat China with the utmost fairness.  If our treaty is
wrong, amend it, but do so according to the recognized usage of
nations.  After what has been said and done in this country I think
there is very little danger of any Chinaman voluntarily coming
here.  By this time China must have an exceedingly exalted opinion
of our religion, and of the justice and hospitality born of our
most holy faith.

_Question_.  What is your opinion of making ex-Presidents Senators
for life?

_Answer_.  I am opposed to it.  I am against any man holding office
for life.  And I see no more reason for making ex-Presidents
Senators, than for making ex-Senators Presidents.  To me the idea
is preposterous.  Why should ex-Presidents be taken care of?  In
this country labor is not disgraceful, and after a man has been
President he has still the right to be useful.  I am personally
acquainted with several men who will agree, in consideration of
being elected to the presidency, not to ask for another office
during their natural lives.  The people of this country should
never allow a great man to suffer.  The hand, not of charity, but
of justice and generosity, should be forever open to those who have
performed great public service.

But the ex-Presidents of the future may not all be great and good
men, and bad ex-Presidents will not make good Senators.  If the
nation does anything, let it give a reasonable pension to ex-
Presidents.  No man feels like giving pension, power, or place to
General Grant simply because he was once President, but because he
was a great soldier, and led the armies of the nation to victory.
Make him a General, and retire him with the highest military title.
Let him grandly wear the laurels he so nobly won, and should the
sky at any time be darkened with a cloud of foreign war, this
country will again hand him the sword.  Such a course honors the
nation and the man.

_Question_.  Are we not entering upon the era of our greatest
prosperity?

_Answer_.  We are just beginning to be prosperous.  The Northern
Pacific Railroad is to be completed.  Forty millions of dollars
have just been raised by that company, and new States will soon be
born in the great Northwest.  The Texas Pacific will be pushed to
San Diego, and in a few years we will ride in a Pullman car from
Chicago to the City of Mexico.  The gold and silver mines are
yielding more and more, and within the last ten years more than
forty million acres of land have been changed from wilderness to
farms.  This country is beginning to grow.  We have just fairly
entered upon what I believe will be the grandest period of national
development and prosperity.  With the Republican party in power;
with good money; with unlimited credit; with the best land in the
world; with ninety thousand miles of railway; with mountains of
gold and silver; with hundreds of thousands of square miles of coal
fields; with iron enough for the whole world; with the best system
of common schools; with telegraph wires reaching every city and
town, so that no two citizens are an hour apart; with the telephone,
that makes everybody in the city live next door, and with the best
folks in the world, how can we help prospering until the continent
is covered with happy homes?

_Question_.  What do you think of civil service reform?

_Answer_.  I am in favor of it.  I want such civil service reform
that all the offices will be filled with good and competent
Republicans.  The majority should rule, and the men who are in
favor of the views of the majority should hold the offices.  I am
utterly opposed to the idea that a party should show its liberality
at the expense of its principles.  Men holding office can afford
to take their chances with the rest of us.  If they are Democrats,
they should not expect to succeed when their party is defeated.
I believe that there are enough good and honest Republicans in this
country to fill all the offices, and I am opposed to taking any
Democrats until the Republican supply is exhausted.

Men should not join the Republican party to get office.  Such men
are contemptible to the last degree.  Neither should a Republican
administration compel a man to leave the party to get a Federal
appointment.  After a great battle has been fought I do not believe
that the victorious general should reward the officers of the
conquered army.  My doctrine is, rewards for friends.

--_The Commercial_, Cincinnati, Ohio, December 6, 1880.


MR. BEECHER, MOSES AND THE NEGRO.

_Question_.  Mr. Beecher is here.  Have you seen him?

_Answer_.  No, I did not meet Mr. Beecher.  Neither did I hear him
lecture.  The fact is, that long ago I made up my mind that under
no circumstances would I attend any lecture or other entertainment
given at Lincoln Hall.  First, because the hall has been denied
me, and secondly, because I regard it as extremely unsafe.  The
hall is up several stories from the ground, and in case of the
slightest panic, in my judgment, many lives would be lost.  Had it
not been for this, and for the fact that the persons owning it
imagined that because they had control, the brick and mortar had
some kind of holy and sacred quality, and that this holiness is of
such a wonderful character that it would not be proper for a man
in that hall to tell his honest thoughts, I would have heard him.

_Question_.  Then I assume that you and Mr. Beecher have made up?

_Answer_.  There is nothing to be made up for so far as I know.
Mr. Beecher has treated me very well, and, I believe, a little too
well for his own peace of mind.  I have been informed that some
members of Plymouth Church felt exceedingly hurt that their pastor
should so far forget himself as to extend the right hand of fellowship
to one who differs from him upon what they consider very essential
points in theology.  You see I have denied with all my might, a
great many times, the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment.  I
have also had the temerity to suggest that I did not believe that
a being of infinite justice and mercy was the author of all that
I find in the Old Testament.  As, for instance, I have insisted
that God never commanded anybody to butcher women or to cut the
throats of prattling babes.  These orthodox gentlemen have rushed
to the rescue of Jehovah by insisting that he did all these horrible
things.  I have also maintained that God never sanctioned or upheld
human slavery; that he never would make one child to own and beat
another.

I have also expressed some doubts as to whether this same God ever
established the institution of polygamy.  I have insisted that the
institution is simply infamous; that it destroys the idea of home;
that it turns to ashes the most sacred words in our language, and
leaves the world a kind of den in which crawl the serpents of
selfishness and lust.  I have been informed that after Mr. Beecher
had treated me kindly a few members of his congregation objected,
and really felt ashamed that he had so forgotten himself.  After
that, Mr. Beecher saw fit to give his ideas of the position I had
taken.  In this he was not exceedingly kind, nor was his justice
very conspicuous.  But I cared nothing about that, not the least.
As I have said before, whenever Mr. Beecher says a good thing I
give him credit.  Whenever he does an unfair or unjust thing I
charge it to the account of his religion.  I have insisted, and I
still insist, that Mr. Beecher is far better than his creed.  I do
not believe that he believes in the doctrine of eternal punishment.
Neither do I believe that he believes in the literal truth of the
Scriptures.  And, after all, if the Bible is not true, it is hardly
worth while to insist upon its inspiration.  An inspired lie is
not better than an uninspired one.  If the Bible is true it does
not need to be inspired.  If it is not true, inspiration does not
help it.  So that after all it is simply a question of fact.  Is
it true?  I believe Mr. Beecher stated that one of my grievous
faults was that I picked out the bad things in the Bible.  How an
infinitely good and wise God came to put bad things in his book
Mr. Beecher does not explain.  I have insisted that the Bible is
not inspired, and, in order to prove that, have pointed out such
passages as I deemed unworthy to have been written even by a
civilized man or a savage.  I certainly would not endeavor to prove
that the Bible is uninspired by picking out its best passages.  I
admit that there are many good things in the Bible.  The fact that
there are good things in it does not prove its inspiration, because
there are thousands of other books containing good things, and yet
no one claims they are inspired.  Shakespeare's works contain a
thousand times more good things than the Bible, but no one claims
he was an inspired man.  It is also true that there are many bad
things in Shakespeare--many passages which I wish he had never
written.  But I can excuse Shakespeare, because he did not rise
absolutely above his time.  That is to say, he was a man; that is
to say, he was imperfect.  If anybody claimed now that Shakespeare
was actually inspired, that claim would be answered by pointing to
certain weak or bad or vulgar passages in his works.  But every
Christian will say that it is a certain kind of blasphemy to impute
vulgarity or weakness to God, as they are all obliged to defend
the weak, the bad and the vulgar, so long as they insist upon the
inspiration of the Bible.  Now, I pursued the same course with the
Bible that Mr. Beecher has pursued with me.  Why did he want to
pick out my bad things?  Is it possible that he is a kind of vulture
that sees only the carrion of another?  After all, has he not
pursued the same method with me that he blames me for pursuing in
regard to the Bible?  Of course he must pursue that method.  He
could not object to me and then point out passages that were not
objectionable.  If he found fault he had to find faults in order
to sustain his ground.  That is exactly what I have done with
Scriptures--nothing more and nothing less.  The reason I have thrown
away the Bible is that in many places it is harsh, cruel, unjust,
coarse, vulgar, atrocious, infamous.  At the same time, I admit
that it contains many passages of an excellent and splendid character
--many good things, wise sayings, and many excellent and just laws.

But I would like to ask this:  Suppose there were no passages in
the Bible except those upholding slavery, polygamy and wars of
extermination; would anybody then claim that it was the word of
God?  I would like to ask if there is a Christian in the world who
would not be overjoyed to find that every one of these passages
was an interpolation?  I would also like to ask Mr. Beecher if he
would not be greatly gratified to find that after God had written
the Bible the Devil had got hold of it, and interpolated all these
passages about slavery, polygamy, the slaughter of women and babes
and the doctrine of eternal punishment?  Suppose, as a matter of
fact, the Devil did get hold of it; what part of the Bible would
Mr. Beecher pick out as having been written by the Devil?  And if
he picks out these passages could not the Devil answer him by
saying, "You, Mr. Beecher, are like a vulture, a kind of buzzard,
flying through the tainted air of inspiration, and pouncing down
upon the carrion.  Why do you not fly like a dove, and why do you
not have the innocent ignorance of the dove, so that you could
light upon a carcass and imagine that you were surrounded by the
perfume of violets?"  The fact is that good things in a book do
not prove that it is inspired, but the presence of bad things does
prove that it is not.

_Question_.  What was the real difficulty between you and Moses,
Colonel, a man who has been dead for thousands of years?

_Answer_.  We never had any difficulty.  I have always taken pains
to say that Moses had nothing to do with the Pentateuch.  Those
books, in my judgment, were written several centuries after Moses
had become dust in his unknown sepulchre.  No doubt Moses was quite
a man in his day, if he ever existed at all.  Some people say that
Moses is exactly the same as "law-giver;" that is to say, as
Legislature, that is to say as Congress.  Imagine somebody in the
future as regarding the Congress of the United States as one person!
And then imagine that somebody endeavoring to prove that Congress
was always consistent.  But, whether Moses lived or not makes but
little difference to me.  I presume he filled the place and did
the work that he was compelled to do, and although according to
the account God had much to say to him with regard to the making
of altars, tongs, snuffers and candlesticks, there is much left
for nature still to tell.  Thinking of Moses as a man, admitting
that he was above his fellows, that he was in his day and generation
a leader, and, in a certain narrow sense, a patriot, that he was
the founder of the Jewish people; that he found them barbarians
and endeavored to control them by thunder and lightning, and found
it necessary to pretend that he was in partnership with the power
governing the universe; that he took advantage of their ignorance
and fear, just as politicians do now, and as theologians always
will, still, I see no evidence that the man Moses was any nearer
to God than his descendants, who are still warring against the
Philistines in every civilized part of the globe.  Moses was a
believer in slavery, in polygamy, in wars of extermination, in
religious persecution and intolerance and in almost everything that
is now regarded with loathing, contempt and scorn.  The Jehovah of
whom he speaks violated, or commands the violation of at least nine
of the Ten Commandments he gave.  There is one thing, however, that
can be said of Moses that cannot be said of any person who now
insists that he was inspired, and that is, he was in advance of his
time.

_Question_.  What do you think of the Buckner Bill for the colonization
of the negroes in Mexico?

_Answer_.  Where does Mr. Buckner propose to colonize the white
people, and what right has he to propose the colonization of six
millions of people?  Should we not have other bills to colonize
the Germans, the Swedes, the Irish, and then, may be, another bill
to drive the Chinese into the sea?  Where do we get the right to
say that the negroes must emigrate?

All such schemes will, in my judgment, prove utterly futile.
Perhaps the history of the world does not give an instance of the
emigration of six millions of people.  Notwithstanding the treatment
that Ireland has received from England, which may be designated as
a crime of three hundred years, the Irish still love Ireland.  All
the despotism in the world will never crush out of the Irish heart
the love of home--the adoration of the old sod.  The negroes of
the South have certainly suffered enough to drive them into other
countries; but after all, they prefer to stay where they were born.
They prefer to live where their ancestors were slaves, where fathers
and mothers were sold and whipped; and I don't believe it will be
possible to induce a majority of them to leave that land.  Of
course, thousands may leave, and in process of time millions may
go, but I don't believe emigration will ever equal their natural
increase.  As the whites of the South become civilized the reason
for going will be less and less.

I see no reason why the white and black men cannot live together
in the same land, under the same flag.  The beauty of liberty is
you cannot have it unless you give it away, and the more you give
away the more you have.  I know that my liberty is secure only
because others are free.

I am perfectly willing to live in a country with such men as
Frederick Douglass and Senator Bruce.  I have always preferred a
good, clever black man to a mean white man, and I am of the opinion
that I shall continue in that preference.  Now, if we could only
have a colonization bill that would get rid of all the rowdies,
all the rascals and hypocrites, I would like to see it carried out,
thought some people might insist that it would amount to a repudiation
of the national debt and that hardly enough would be left to pay
the interest.  No, talk as we will, the colored people helped to
save this Nation.  They have been at all times and in all places
the friends of our flag; a flag that never really protected them.
And for my part, I am willing that they should stand forever beneath
that flag, the equal in rights of all other people.  Politically,
if any black men are to be sent away, I want it understood that
each one is to be accompanied by a Democrat, so that the balance
of power, especially in New York, will not be disturbed.

_Question_.  I notice that leading Republican newspapers are advising
General Garfield to cut loose from the machine in politics; what
do you regard as the machine?

_Answer_.  All defeated candidates regard the persons who defeated
them as constituting a machine, and always imagine that there is
some wicked conspiracy at the bottom of the machine.  Some of the
recent reformers regard the people who take part in the early stages
of a political campaign--who attend caucuses and primaries, who
speak of politics to their neighbors, as members and parts of the
machine, and regard only those as good and reliable American citizens
who take no part whatever, simply reserving the right to grumble
after the work has been done by others.  Not much can be accomplished
in politics without an organization, and the moment an organization
is formed, and, you might say, just a little before, leading spirits
will be developed.  Certain men will take the lead, and the weaker
men will in a short time, unless they get all the loaves and fishes,
denounce the whole thing as a machine, and, to show how thoroughly
and honestly they detest the machine in politics, will endeavor to
organize a little machine themselves.  General Garfield has been
in politics for many years.  He knows the principal men in both
parties.  He knows the men who have not only done something, but
who are capable of doing something, and such men will not, in my
opinion, be neglected.  I do not believe that General Garfield will
do any act calculated to divide the Republican party.  No thoroughly
great man carries personal prejudice into the administration of
public affairs.  Of course, thousands of people will be prophesying
that this man is to be snubbed and another to be paid; but, in my
judgment, after the 4th of March most people will say that General
Garfield has used his power wisely and that he has neither sought
nor shunned men simply because he wished to pay debts--either of
love or hatred.

--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, January 31, 1881.


HADES, DELAWARE AND FREETHOUGHT.

_Question_.  Now that a lull has come in politics, I thought I
would come and see what is going on in the religious world?

_Answer_.  Well, from what little I learn, there has not been much
going on during the last year.  There are five hundred and twenty-
six Congregational Churches in Massachusetts, and two hundred of
these churches have not received a new member for an entire year,
and the others have scarcely held their own.  In Illinois there
are four hundred and eighty-three Presbyterian Churches, and they
have now fewer members than they had in 1879, and of the four
hundred and eighty-three, one hundred and eighty-three have not
received a single new member for twelve months.  A report has been
made, under the auspices of the Pan-Presbyterian Council, to the
effect that there are in the whole world about three millions of
Presbyterians.  This is about one-fifth of one per cent. of the
inhabitants of the world.  The probability is that of the three
million nominal Presbyterians, not more than two or three hundred
thousand actually believe the doctrine, and of the two or three
hundred thousand, not more than five or six hundred have any true
conception of what the doctrine is.  As the Presbyterian Church
has only been able to induce one-fifth of one per cent. of the
people to even call themselves Presbyterians, about how long will
it take, at this rate, to convert mankind?  The fact is, there
seems to be a general lull along the entire line, and just at
present very little is being done by the orthodox people to keep
their fellow-citizens out of hell.

_Question_.  Do you really think that the orthodox people now
believe in the old doctrine of eternal punishment, and that they
really think there is a kind of hell that our ancestors so carefully
described?

_Answer_.  I am afraid that the old idea is dying out, and that
many Christians are slowly giving up the consolations naturally
springing from the old belief.  Another terrible blow to the old
infamy is the fact that in the revised New Testament the word Hades
has been substituted.  As nobody knows exactly what Hades means,
it will not be quite so easy to frighten people at revivals by
threatening them with something that they don't clearly understand.
After this, when the impassioned orator cries out that all the
unconverted will be sent to Hades, the poor sinners, instead of
getting frightened, will begin to ask each other what and where
that is.  It will take many years of preaching to clothe that word
in all the terrors and horrors, pains, and penalties and pangs of
hell.  Hades is a compromise.  It is a concession to the philosophy
of our day.  It is a graceful acknowledgment to the growing spirit
of investigation, that hell, after all, is a barbaric mistake.
Hades is the death of revivals.  It cannot be used in song.  It
won't rhyme with anything with the same force that hell does.  It
is altogether more shadowy than hot.  It is not associated with
brimstone and flame.  It sounds somewhat indistinct, somewhat
lonesome, a little desolate, but not altogether uncomfortable.
For revival purposes, Hades is simply useless, and few conversions
will be made in the old way under the revised Testament.

_Question_.  Do you really think that the church is losing ground?

_Answer_.  I am not, as you probably know, connected with any
orthodox organization, and consequently have to rely upon them for
my information.  If they can be believed, the church is certainly
in an extremely bad condition.  I find that the Rev. Dr. Cuyler,
only a few days ago, speaking of the religious condition of Brooklyn
--and Brooklyn, you know, has been called the City of Churches--
states that the great mass of that Christian city was out of Christ,
and that more professing Christians went to the theatre than to
the prayer meeting. This, certainly, from their standpoint, is a
most terrible declaration.  Brooklyn, you know, is one of the great
religious centres of the world--a city in which nearly all the
people are engaged either in delivering or in hearing sermons; a
city filled with the editors of religious periodicals; a city of
prayer and praise; and yet, while prayer meetings are free, the
theatres, with the free list entirely suspended, catch more Christians
than the churches; and this happens while all the pulpits thunder
against the stage, and the stage remains silent as to the pulpit.
At the same meeting in which the Rev. Dr. Cuyler made his astounding
statements the Rev. Mr. Pentecost was the bearer of the happy news
that four out of five persons living in the city of Brooklyn were
going down to hell with no God and with no hope.  If he had read
the revised Testament he would have said "Hades," and the effect
of the statement would have been entirely lost.  If four-fifths of
the people of that great city are destined to eternal pain, certainly
we cannot depend upon churches for the salvation of the world.  At
the meeting of the Brooklyn pastors they were in doubt as to whether
they should depend upon further meetings, or upon a day of fasting
and prayer for the purpose of converting the city.

In my judgment, it would be much better to devise ways and means
to keep a good many people from fasting in Brooklyn.  If they had
more meat, they could get along with less meeting.  If fasting
would save a city, there are always plenty of hungry folks even in
that Christian town.  The real trouble with the church of to-day
is, that it is behind the intelligence of the people.  Its doctrines
no longer satisfy the brains of the nineteenth century; and if the
church proposes to hold its power, it must lose its superstitions.
The day of revivals is gone.  Only the ignorant and unthinking can
hereafter be impressed by hearing the orthodox creed.  Fear has in
it no reformatory power, and the more intelligent the world grows
the more despicable and contemptible the doctrine of eternal misery
will become.  The tendency of the age is toward intellectual liberty,
toward personal investigation.  Authority is no longer taken for
truth.  People are beginning to find that all the great and good
are not dead--that some good people are alive, and that the
demonstrations of to-day are fully equal to the mistaken theories
of the past.

_Question_.  How are you getting along with Delaware?

_Answer_.  First rate.  You know I have been wondering where Comegys
came from, and at last I have made the discovery.  I was told the
other day by a gentleman from Delaware that many years ago Colonel
Hazelitt died; that Colonel Hazelitt was an old Revolutionary
officer, and that when they were digging his grave they dug up
Comegys.  Back of that no one knows anything of his history.  The
only thing they know about him certainly, is, that he has never
changed one of his views since he was found, and that he never
will.  I am inclined to think, however, that he lives in a community
congenial to him.  For instance, I saw in a paper the other day
that within a radius of thirty miles around Georgetown, Delaware,
there are about two hundred orphan and friendless children.  These
children, it seems, were indentured to Delaware farmers by the
managers of orphan asylums and other public institutions in and
about Philadelphia.  It is stated in the paper, that:

"Many of these farmers are rough task-masters, and if a boy fails
to perform the work of an adult, he is almost certain to be cruelly
treated, half starved, and in the coldest weather wretchedly clad.
If he does the work, his life is not likely to be much happier,
for as a rule he will receive more kicks than candy.  The result
in either case is almost certain to be wrecked constitutions,
dwarfed bodies, rounded shoulders, and limbs crippled or rendered
useless by frost or rheumatism.  The principal diet of these boys
is corn pone.  A few days ago, Constable W. H. Johnston went to
the house of Reuben Taylor, and on entering the sitting room his
attention was attracted by the moans of its only occupant, a little
colored boy, who was lying on the hearth in front of the fireplace.
The boy's head was covered with ashes from the fire, and he did
not pay the slightest attention to the visitor, until Johnston
asked what made him cry.  Then the little fellow sat up and drawing
on old rag off his foot said, 'Look there.'  The sight that met
Johnston's eye was horrible beyond description.  The poor boy's
feet were so horribly frozen that the flesh had dropped off the
toes until the bones protruded.  The flesh on the sides, bottoms,
and tops of his feet was swollen until the skin cracked in many
places, and the inflamed flesh was sloughing off in great flakes.
The frost-bitten flesh extended to his knees, the joints of which
were terribly inflamed.  The right one had already begun suppurating.
This poor little black boy, covered with nothing but a cotton shirt,
drilling pants, a pair of nearly worn out brogans and a battered
old hat, on the morning of December 30th, the coldest day of the
season, when the mercury was seventeen degrees below zero, in the
face of a driving snow storm, was sent half a mile from home to
protect his master's unshucked corn from the depredations of
marauding cows and crows.  He remained standing around in the snow
until four o'clock, then he drove the cows home, received a piece
of cold corn pone, and was sent out in the snow again to chop stove
wood till dark.  Having no bed, he slept that night in front of
the fireplace, with his frozen feet buried in the ashes.  Dr. C.
H. Richards found it necessary to cut off the boy's feet as far
back as the ankle and the instep."

This was but one case in several.  Personally, I have no doubt that
Mr. Reuben Taylor entirely agrees with Chief Justice Comegys on
the great question of blasphemy, and probably nothing would so
gratify Mr. Reuben Taylor as to see some man in a Delaware jail
for the crime of having expressed an honest thought.  No wonder
that in the State of Delaware the Christ of intellectual liberty
has been crucified between the pillory and the whipping-post.  Of
course I know that there are thousands of most excellent people in
that State--people who believe in intellectual liberty, and who
only need a little help--and I am doing what I can in that direction
--to repeal the laws that now disgrace the statute book of that
little commonwealth.  I have seen many people from that State lately
who really wish that Colonel Hazelitt had never died.

_Question_.  What has the press generally said with regard to the
action of Judge Comegys?  Do they, so far as you know, justify his
charge?

_Answer_.  A great many papers having articles upon the subject
have been sent to me.  A few of the religious papers seem to think
that the Judge did the best he knew, and there is one secular paper
called the _Evening News_, published at Chester, Pa., that thinks
"that the rebuke from so high a source of authority will have a
most excellent effect, and will check religious blasphemers from
parading their immoral creeds before the people."  The editor of
this paper should at once emigrate to the State of Delaware, where
he properly belongs.  He is either a native of Delaware, or most
of his subscribers are citizens of that country; or, it may be that
he is a lineal descendant of some Hessian, who deserted during the
Revolutionary war.  Most of the newspapers in the United States
are advocates of mental freedom.  Probably nothing on earth has
been so potent for good as an untrammeled, fearless press.  Among
the papers of importance there is not a solitary exception.  No
leading journal in the United States can be found upon the side of
intellectual slavery.  Of course, a few rural sheets edited by
gentlemen, as Mr. Greeley would say, "whom God in his inscrutable
wisdom had allowed to exist," may be found upon the other side,
and may be small enough, weak enough and mean enough to pander to
the lowest and basest prejudices of their most ignorant subscribers.
These editors disgrace their profession and exert about the same
influence upon the heads as upon the pockets of their subscribers
--that is to say, they get little and give less.

_Question_.  Do you not think after all, the people who are in
favor of having you arrested for blasphemy, are acting in accordance
with the real spirit of the Old and New Testaments?

_Answer_.  Of course, they act in exact accordance with many of
the commands in the Old Testament, and in accordance with several
passages in the New.  At the same time, it may be said that they
violate passages in both.  If the Old Testament is true, and if it
is the inspired word of God, of course, an Infidel ought not be
allowed to live; and if the New Testament is true, an unbeliever
should not be permitted to speak.  There are many passages, though,
in the New Testament, that should protect even an Infidel.  Among
them is this:  "Do unto others as ye would that others should do
unto you."  But that is a passage that has probably had as little
effect upon the church as any other in the Bible.  So far as I am
concerned, I am willing to adopt that passage, and I am willing to
extend to every other human being every right that I claim for
myself.  If the churches would act upon this principle, if they
would say--every soul, every mind, may think and investigate for
itself; and around all, and over all, shall be thrown the sacred
shield of liberty, I should be on their side.

_Question_.  How do you stand with the clergymen, and what is their
opinion of you and of your views?

_Answer_.  Most of them envy me; envy my independence; envy my
success; think that I ought to starve; that the people should not
hear me; say that I do what I do for money, for popularity; that I
am actuated by hatred of all that is good and tender and holy in
human nature; think that I wish to tear down the churches, destroy
all morality and goodness, and usher in the reign of crime and
chaos.  They know that shepherds are unnecessary in the absence of
wolves, and it is to their interest to convince their sheep that
they, the sheep, need protection.  This they are willing to give
them for half the wool.  No doubt, most of these minsters are
honest, and are doing what they consider their duty.  Be this as
it may, they feel the power slipping from their hands.  They know
that the idea is slowly growing that they are not absolutely
necessary for the protection of society.  They know that the
intellectual world cares little for what they say, and that the
great tide of human progress flows on careless of their help or
hindrance.  So long as they insist upon the inspiration of the
Bible, they are compelled to take the ground that slavery was once
a divine institution; they are forced to defend cruelties that
would shock the heart of a savage, and besides, they are bound to
teach the eternal horror of everlasting punishment.

They poison the minds of children; they deform the brain and pollute
the imagination by teaching the frightful and infamous dogma of
endless misery.  Even the laws of Delaware shock the enlightened
public of to-day.  In that State they simply fine and imprison a
man for expressing his honest thoughts; and yet, if the churches
are right, God will damn a man forever for the same offence.  The
brain and heart of our time cannot be satisfied with the ancient
creeds.  The Bible must be revised again.  Most of the creeds must
be blotted out.  Humanity must take the place of theology.
Intellectual liberty must stand in every pulpit.  There must be
freedom in all the pews, and every human soul must have the right
to express its honest thought.

--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, March 19, 1881.


A REPLY TO THE REV. MR. LANSING.*

[* Rev. Isaac J. Lansing of Meriden, Conn., recently denounced Col.
Robert G. Ingersoll from the pulpit of the Meriden Methodist Church,
and had the Opera House closed against him.  This led a _Union_ reporter
to show Colonel Ingersoll what Mr. Lansing had said and to interrogate
him with the following result.]

_Question_.  Did you favor the sending of obscene matter through
the mails as alleged by the Rev. Mr. Lansing?

_Answer_.  Of course not, and no honest man ever thought that I
did.  This charge is too malicious and silly to be answered.  Mr.
Lansing knows better.  He has made this charge many times and he
will make it again.

_Question_.  Is it a fact that there are thousands of clergymen in
the country whom you would fear to meet in fair debate?

_Answer_.  No; the fact is I would like to meet them all in one.
The pulpit is not burdened with genius.  There a few great men
engaged in preaching, but they are not orthodox.  I cannot conceive
that a Freethinker has anything to fear from the pulpit, except
misrepresentation.  Of course, there are thousands of ministers
too small to discuss with--ministers who stand for nothing in the
church--and with such clergymen I cannot afford to discuss anything.
If the Presbyterians, or the Congregationalists, or the Methodists
would select some man, and endorse him as their champion, I would
like to meet him in debate.  Such a man I will pay to discuss with
me.  I will give him most excellent wages, and pay all the expenses
at the discussion besides.  There is but one safe course for the
ministers--they must assert.  They must declare.  They must swear
to it and stick to it, but they must not try to reason.

_Question_.  You have never seen Rev. Mr. Lansing.  To the people
of Meriden and thereabouts he is well-known.  Judging from what
has been told you of his utterances and actions, what kind of a
man would you take him to be?

_Answer_.  I would take him to be a Christian.  He talks like one,
and he acts like one.  If Christianity is right, Lansing is right.
If salvation depends upon belief, and if unbelievers are to be
eternally damned, then an Infidel has no right to speak.  He should
not be allowed to murder the souls of his fellow-men.  Lansing does
the best he knows how.  He thinks that God hates an unbeliever,
and he tries to act like God.  Lansing knows that he must have the
right to slander a man whom God is to eternally damn.

_Question_.  Mr. Lansing speaks of you as a wolf coming with fangs
sharpened by three hundred dollars a night to tear the lambs of
his flock.  What do you say to that?

_Answer_.  All I have to say is, that I often get three times that
amount, and sometimes much more.  I guess his lambs can take care
of themselves.  I am not very fond of mutton anyway.  Such talk
Mr. Lansing ought to be ashamed of.  The idea that he is a shepherd
--that he is on guard--is simply preposterous.  He has few sheep
in his congregation that know as little on the wolf question as
he does.  He ought to know that his sheep support him--his sheep
protect him; and without the sheep poor Lansing would be devoured
by the wolves himself.

_Question_.  Shall you sue the Opera House management for breach
of contract?

_Answer_.  I guess not; but I may pay Lansing something for
advertising my lecture.  I suppose Mr. Wilcox (who controls the
Opera House) did what he thought was right.  I hear he is a good
man.  He probably got a little frightened and began to think about
the day of judgment.  He could not help it, and I cannot help
laughing at him.

_Question_.  Those in Meriden who most strongly oppose you are
radical Republicans.  Is it not a fact that you possess the confidence
and friendship of some of the most respected leaders of that party?

_Answer_.  I think that all the respectable ones are friends of
mine.  I am a Republican because I believe in the liberty of the
body, and I am an Infidel because I believe in the liberty of the
mind.  There is no need of freeing cages.  Let us free the birds.
If Mr. Lansing knew me, he would be a great friend.  He would
probably annoy me by the frequency and length of his visits.

_Question_.  During the recent presidential campaign did any
clergymen denounce you for your teachings, that you are aware of?

_Answer_.  Some did, but they would not if they had been running
for office on the Republican ticket.

_Question_.  What is most needed in our public men?

_Answer_.  Hearts and brains.

_Question_.  Would people be any more moral solely because of a
disbelief in orthodox teaching and in the Bible as an inspired
book, in your opinion?

_Answer_.  Yes; if a man really believes that God once upheld
slavery; that he commanded soldiers to kill women and babes; that
he believed in polygamy; that he persecuted for opinion's sake;
that he will punish forever, and that he hates an unbeliever, the
effect in my judgment will be bad.  It always has been bad.  This
belief built the dungeons of the Inquisition.  This belief made
the Puritan murder the Quaker, and this belief has raised the devil
with Mr. Lansing.

_Question_.  Do you believe there will ever be a millennium, and
if so how will it come about?

_Answer_.  It will probably start in Meriden, as I have been informed
that Lansing is going to leave.

_Question_.  Is there anything else bearing upon the question at
issue or that would make good reading, that I have forgotten, that
you would like to say?

_Answer_.  Yes.  Good-bye.

--_The Sunday Union_, New Haven, Conn., April 10, 1881.


BEACONSFIELD, LENT AND REVIVALS.

_Question_.  What have you to say about the attack of Dr. Buckley
on you, and your lecture?

_Answer_.  I never heard of Dr. Buckley until after I had lectured
in Brooklyn.  He seems to think that it was extremely ill bred in
me to deliver a lecture on the "Liberty of Man, Woman and Child,"
during Lent.  Lent is just as good as any other part of the year,
and no part can be too good to do good.  It was not a part of my
object to hurt the feelings of the Episcopalians and Catholics.
If they think that there is some subtle relation between hunger
and heaven, or that faith depends upon, or is strengthened by
famine, or that veal, during Lent, is the enemy of virtue, or that
beef breeds blasphemy, while fish feeds faith--of course, all this
is nothing to me.  They have a right to say that vice depends upon
victuals, sanctity on soup, religion on rice and chastity on cheese,
but they have no right to say that a lecture on liberty is an insult
to them because they are hungry.  I suppose that Lent was instituted
in memory of the Savior's fast.  At one time it was supposed that
only a divine being could live forty days without food.  This
supposition has been overthrown.

It has been demonstrated by Dr. Tanner to be utterly without
foundation.  What possible good did it do the world for Christ to
go without food for forty days?  Why should we follow such an
example?  As a rule, hungry people are cross, contrary, obstinate,
peevish and unpleasant.  A good dinner puts a man at peace with
all the world--makes him generous, good natured and happy.  He
feels like kissing his wife and children.  The future looks bright.
He wants to help the needy.  The good in him predominates, and he
wonders that any man was ever stingy or cruel.  Your good cook is
a civilizer, and without good food, well prepared, intellectual
progress is simply impossible.  Most of the orthodox creeds were
born of bad cooking.  Bad food produced dyspepsia, and dyspepsia
produced Calvinism, and Calvinism is the cancer of Christianity.
Oatmeal is responsible for the worst features of Scotch Presbyterianism.
Half cooked beans account for the religion of the Puritans.  Fried
bacon and saleratus biscuit underlie the doctrine of State Rights.
Lent is a mistake, fasting is a blunder, and bad cooking is a crime.

_Question_.  It is stated that you went to Brooklyn while Beecher
and Talmage were holding revivals, and that you did so for the
purpose of breaking them up.  How is this?

_Answer_.  I had not the slightest idea of interfering with the
revivals.  They amounted to nothing.  They were not alive enough
to be killed.  Surely one lecture could not destroy two revivals.
Still, I think that if all the persons engaged in the revivals had
spent the same length of time in cleaning the streets, the good
result would have been more apparent.  The truth is, that the old
way of converting people will have to be abandoned.  The Americans
are getting hard to scare, and a revival without the "scare" is
scarcely worth holding.  Such maniacs as Hammond and the "Boy
Preacher" fill asylums and terrify children.  After saying what he
has about hell, Mr. Beecher ought to know that he is not the man
to conduct a revival.  A revival sermon with hell left out--with
the brimstone gone--with the worm that never dies, dead, and the
Devil absent--is the broadest farce.  Mr. Talmage believes in the
ancient way.  With him hell is a burning reality.  He can hear the
shrieks and groans.  He is of that order of mind that rejoices in
these things.  If he could only convince others, he would be a
great revivalist.  He cannot terrify, he astonishes.  He is the
clown of the horrible--one of Jehovah's jesters.  I am not responsible
for the revival failure in Brooklyn.  I wish I were.  I would have
the happiness of knowing that I had been instrumental in preserving
the sanity of my fellow-men.

_Question_.  How do you account for these attacks?

_Answer_.  It was not so much what I said that excited the wrath
of the reverend gentlemen as the fact that I had a great house.
They contrasted their failure with my success.  The fact is, the
people are getting tired of the old ideas.  They are beginning to
think for themselves.  Eternal punishment seems to them like eternal
revenge.  They see that Christ could not atone for the sins of
others; that belief ought not to be rewarded and honest doubt
punished forever; that good deeds are better than bad creeds, and
that liberty is the rightful heritage of every soul.

_Question_.  Were you an admirer of Lord Beaconsfield?

_Answer_.  In some respects.  He was on our side during the war,
and gave it as his opinion that the Union would be preserved.  Mr.
Gladstone congratulated Jefferson Davis on having founded a new
nation.  I shall never forget Beaconsfield for his kindness, nor
Gladstone for his malice.  Beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast,
a political athlete, one of the most adroit men in the world.  He
had the persistence of his race.  In spite of the prejudices of
eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can
be occupied by a citizen.  During his administration England again
became a Continental power and played her game of European chess.
I have never regarded Beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle,
or by his heart.  He was strictly a politician.  He always acted
as though he thought the clubs were looking at him.  He knew all
the arts belonging to his trade.  He would have succeeded anywhere,
if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power.
But after all, such men are splendid failures.  They give themselves
and others a great deal of trouble--they wear the tinsel crown of
temporary success and then fade from public view.  They astonish
the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the
curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind.  Beaconsfield
held convictions somewhat in contempt.  He had the imagination of
the East united with the ambition of an Englishman.  With him, to
succeed was to have done right.

_Question_.  What do you think of him as an author?

_Answer_.  Most of his characters are like himself--puppets moved
by the string of self-interest.  The men are adroit, the women
mostly heartless.  They catch each other with false bait.  They
have great worldly wisdom.  Their virtue and vice are mechanical.
They have hearts like clocks--filled with wheels and springs.  The
author winds them up.  In his novels Disraeli allows us to enter
the greenroom of his heart.  We see the ropes, the pulleys and the
old masks.  In all things, in politics and in literature, he was
cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful.  His books will, in
a little while, follow their author to their grave.  After all,
the good will live longest.

--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, April 24, 1881.


ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*

[* Ever since Colonel Ingersoll began the delivery of his lecture
called _The Great Infidels_, the ministers of the country have
made him the subject of special attack.  One week ago last Sunday
the majority of the leading ministers in New York made replies to
Ingersoll's latest lecture.  What he has to say to these replies
will be found in a report of an interview with Colonel Ingersoll.

No man is harder to pin down for a long talk than the Colonel.  He is
so beset with visitors and eager office seekers anxious for help,
that he can hardly find five minutes unoccupied during an entire day.
Through the shelter of a private room and the guardianship of a stout
colored servant, the Colonel was able to escape the crowd of seekers
after his personal charity long enough to give some time to answer
some of the ministerial arguments advanced against him in New York.]

_Question_.  Have you seen the attacks made upon you by certain
ministers of New York, published in the _Herald_ last Sunday?

_Answer_.  Yes, I read, or heard read, what was in Monday's _Herald_.
I do not know that you could hardly call them attacks.  They are
substantially a repetition of what the pulpit has been saying for
a great many hundred years, and what the pulpit will say just so
long as men are paid for suppressing truth and for defending
superstition.  One of these gentlemen tells the lambs of his flock
that three thousand men and a few women--probably with quite an
emphasis on the word "Few"--gave one dollar each to hear their
Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed.  Probably nothing is so
hard for the average preacher to bear as the fact that people are
not only willing to hear the other side, but absolutely anxious to
pay for it.  The dollar that these people paid hurt their feelings
vastly more than what was said after they were in.  Of course, it
is a frightful commentary on the average intellect of the pulpit
that a minister cannot get so large an audience when he preaches
for nothing, as an Infidel can draw at a dollar a head.  If I
depended upon a contribution box, or upon passing a saucer that
would come back to the stage enriched with a few five cent pieces,
eight or ten dimes, and a lonesome quarter, these gentlemen would,
in all probability, imagine Infidelity was not to be feared.

The churches were all open on that Sunday, and all could go who
desired.  Yet they were not full, and the pews were nearly as empty
of people as the pulpit of ideas.  The truth is, the story is
growing old, the ideas somewhat moss-covered, and everything has
a wrinkled and withered appearance.  This gentleman says that these
people went to hear their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed.
Is it possible that in a city where so many steeples pierce the
air, and hundreds of sermons are preached every Sunday, there are
three thousand men, and a few women, so anxious to hear "their
Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed" that they are willing to
pay a dollar each?  The gentleman knew that nobody cursed anybody's
Maker.  He knew that the statement was utterly false and without
the slightest foundation.  He also knew that nobody had ridiculed
the Savior of anybody, but, on the contrary, that I had paid a
greater tribute to the character of Jesus Christ than any minister
in New York has the capacity to do.  Certainly it is not cursing
the Maker of anybody to say that the God described in the Old
Testament is not the real God.  Certainly it is not cursing God to
declare that the real God never sanctioned slavery or polygamy, or
commanded wars of extermination, or told a husband to separate from
his wife if she differed with him in religion.  The people who say
these things of God--if there is any God at all--do what little
there is in their power, unwittingly of course, to destroy his
reputation.  But I have done something to rescue the reputation of
the Deity from the slanders of the pulpit.  If there is any God,
I expect to find myself credited on the heavenly books for my
defence of him.  I did say that our civilization is due not to
piety, but to Infidelity.  I did say that every great reformer had
been denounced as an Infidel in his day and generation.  I did say
that Christ was an Infidel, and that he was treated in his day very
much as the orthodox preachers treat an honest man now.  I did say
that he was tried for blasphemy and crucified by bigots.  I did
say that he hated and despised the church of his time, and that he
denounced the most pious people of Jerusalem as thieves and vipers.
And I suggested that should he come again he might have occasion
to repeat the remarks that he then made.  At the same time I admitted
that there are thousands and thousands of Christians who are
exceedingly good people.  I never did pretend that the fact that
a man was a Christian even tended to show that he was a bad man.
Neither have I ever insisted that the fact that a man is an Infidel
even tends to show what, in other respects, his character is.  But
I always have said, and I always expect to say, that a Christian
who does not believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a curse
to mankind, and that an Infidel who does believe in absolute
intellectual liberty is a blessing to this world.  We cannot expect
all Infidels to be good, nor all Christians to be bad, and we might
make some mistakes even if we selected these people ourselves.  It
is admitted by the Christians that Christ made a great mistake when
he selected Judas.  This was a mistake of over eight per cent.

Chaplain Newman takes pains to compare some great Christians with
some great Infidels.  He compares Washington with Julian, and
insists, I suppose, that Washington was a great Christian.  Certainly
he is not very familiar with the history of Washington, or he never
would claim that he was particularly distinguished in his day for
what is generally known as vital piety.  That he went through the
ordinary forms of Christianity nobody disputes.  That he listened
to sermons without paying any particular attention to them, no one
will deny.  Julian, of course, was somewhat prejudiced against
Christianity, but that he was one of the greatest men of antiquity
no one acquainted with the history of Rome can honestly dispute.
When he was made emperor he found at the palace hundreds of gentlemen
who acted as barbers, hair-combers, and brushers for the emperor.
He dismissed them all, remarking that he was able to wash himself.
These dismissed office-holders started the story that he was dirty
in his habits, and a minister of the nineteenth century was found
silly enough to believe the story.  Another thing that probably
got him into disrepute in that day, he had no private chaplains.
As a matter of fact, Julian was forced to pretend that he was a
Christian in order to save his life.  The Christians of that day
were of such a loving nature that any man who differed with them
was forced to either fall a victim to their ferocity or seek safety
in subterfuge.  The real crime that Julian committed, and the only
one that has burned itself into the very heart and conscience of
the Christian world, is, that he transferred the revenues of the
Christian churches to heathen priests.  Whoever stands between a
priest and his salary will find that he has committed the unpardonable
sin commonly known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.

This gentleman also compares Luther with Voltaire.  If he will read
the life of Luther by Lord Brougham, he will find that in his
ordinary conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that
no respectable English publisher could be found who would soil
paper with the translation.  If he will take the pains to read an
essay by Macaulay, he will find that twenty years after the death
of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born.  And
that twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions
less than when he was born.  If he will take just a few moments to
think, he will find that the last victory of Protestantism was in
Holland; that there has never been one since, and will never be
another.  If he would really like to think, and enjoy for a few
moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little
while over the instructive fact that languages having their root
in the Latin have generally been spoken in Catholic countries, and
that those languages having their root in the ancient German are
now mostly spoken by people of Protestant proclivities.  It may
occur to him, after thinking of this a while, that there is something
deeper in the question than he has as yet perceived.  Luther's last
victory, as I said before, was in Holland; but the victory of
Voltaire goes on from day to day.  Protestantism is not holding
its own with Catholicism, even in the United States.  I saw the
other day the statistics, I believe, of the city of Chicago, showing
that, while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent.,
Protestantism had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent.
I am willing for one, to have the whole question depend upon a
comparison of the worth and work of Voltaire and Luther.  It may
be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us that Luther himself
gave consent to a person high in office to have two wives, but
prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still as
possible.  Luther was, also, a believer in a personal Devil.  He
thought that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit.
On one occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had
better drown her child; that he had no doubt that the Devil was
its father.  This same Luther made this observation:  "Universal
toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal
hell."  From this you will see that he was an exceedingly good man,
but mistaken upon many questions.  So, too, he laughed at the
Copernican system, and wanted to know if those fool astronomers
could undo the work of God.  He probably knew as little about
science as the reverend gentleman does about history.

_Question_.  Does he compare any other Infidels with Christians?

_Answer_.  Oh, yes; he compares Lord Bacon with Diderot.  I have
never claimed that Diderot was a saint.  I have simply insisted
that he was a great man; that he was grand enough to say that
"incredulity is the beginning of philosophy;" that he had sense
enough to know that the God described by the Catholics and Protestants
of his day was simply an impossible monster; and that he also had
the brain to see that the little selfish heaven occupied by a few
monks and nuns and idiots they had fleeced, was hardly worth going
to; in other words, that he was a man of common sense, greatly in
advance of his time, and that he did what he could to increase the
sum of human enjoyment to the end that there might be more happiness
in this world.

The gentleman compares him with Lord Bacon, and yet, if he will
read the trials of that day--I think in the year 1620--he will find
that the Christian Lord Bacon, the pious Lord Bacon, was charged
with receiving pay for his opinions, and, in some instances, pay
from both sides; that the Christian Lord Bacon, at first upon his
honor as a Christian lord, denied the whole business; that afterward
the Christian Lord Bacon, upon his honor as a Christian lord,
admitted the truth of the whole business, and that, therefore, the
Christian Lord Bacon was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of
forty thousand pounds, and rendered infamous and incapable of
holding any office.  Now, understand me, I do not think Bacon took
bribes because he was a Christian, because there have been many
Christian judges perfectly honest; but, if the statement of the
reverend gentlemen of New York is true, his being a Christian did
not prevent his taking bribes.  And right here allow me to thank
the gentleman with all my heart for having spoken of Lord Bacon in
this connection.  I have always admired the genius of Bacon, and
have always thought of his fall with an aching heart, and would
not now have spoken of his crime had not his character been flung
in my face by a gentleman who asks his God to kill me for having
expressed my honest thought.

The same gentleman compares Newton with Spinoza.  In the first
place, there is no ground of parallel.  Newton was a very great
man and a very justly celebrated mathematician.  As a matter of
fact, he is not celebrated for having discovered the law of
gravitation.  That was known for thousands of years before he was
born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a little more he
would find that Newton's discovery was not that there is such a
law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a
force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain,
and inversely to the squares of their distances."  I do not think
he made the discoveries on account of his Christianity.  Laplace
was certainly in many respects as great a mathematician and
astronomer, but he was not a Christian.

Descartes was certainly not much inferior to Newton as a mathematician,
and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a
Christian.  Euclid, if I remember right, was not a Christian, and
yet he had quite a turn for mathematics.  As a matter of fact,
Christianity got its idea of algebra from the Mohammedans, and,
without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been
impossible.  Christianity did not even invent figures.  We got
those from the Arabs.  The very word "algebra" is Arabic.  The
decimal system, I believe, however, was due to a German, but whether
he was a Christian or not, I do not know.

We find that the Chinese calculated eclipses long before Christ
was born; and, exactness being the rule at that time, there is an
account of two astronomers having been beheaded for failing to tell
the coming of an eclipse to the minute; yet they were not Christians.
There is another fact connected with Newton, and that is that he
wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation.  The probability is
that a sillier commentary was never written.  It was so perfectly
absurd and laughable that some one--I believe it was Voltaire--said
that while Newton had excited the envy of the intellectual world
by his mathematical accomplishments, it had gotten even with him
the moment his commentaries were published.  Spinoza was not a
mathematician, particularly.  He was a metaphysician, an honest
thinker, whose influence is felt, and will be felt so long as these
great questions have the slightest interest for the human brain.

He also compares Chalmers with Hume.  Chalmers gained his notoriety
from preaching what are known as the astronomical sermons, and, I
suppose, was quite a preacher in his day.

But Hume was a thinker, and his works will live for ages after Mr.
Chalmers' sermons will have been forgotten.  Mr. Chalmers has never
been prominent enough to have been well known by many people.  He
may have been an exceedingly good man, and derived, during his
life, great consolation from a belief in the damnation of infants.

Mr. Newman also compares Wesley with Thomas Paine.  When Thomas
Paine was in favor of human liberty, Wesley was against it.  Thomas
Paine wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense," urging the colonies
to separate themselves from Great Britain.  Wesley wrote a treatise
on the other side.  He was the enemy of human liberty; and if his
advice could have been followed we would have been the colonies of
Great Britain still.  We never would have had a President in need
of a private chaplain.  Mr. Wesley had not a scientific mind.  He
preached a sermon once on the cause and cure of earthquakes, taking
the ground that earthquakes were caused by sins, and that the only
way to stop them was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.  He also
laid down some excellent rules for rearing children, that is, from
a Methodist standpoint.  His rules amounted to about this:

  _First_.  Never give them what they want.
  _Second_.  Never give them what you intend to give them, at the time
    they want it.
  _Third_.  Break their wills at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Wesley made every family an inquisition, every father and mother
inquisitors, and all the children helpless victims.  One of his
homes would give an exceedingly vivid idea of hell.  At the same
time, Mr. Wesley was a believer in witches and wizards, and knew
all about the Devil.  At his request God performed many miracles.
On several occasions he cured his horse of lameness.  On others,
dissipated Mr. Wesley's headaches.  Now and then he put off rain
on account of a camp meeting, and at other times stopped the wind
blowing at the special request of Mr. Wesley.  I have no doubt that
Mr. Wesley was honest in all this,--just as honest as he was
mistaken.  And I also admit that he was the founder of a church
that does extremely well in new countries, and that thousands of
Methodists have been exceedingly good men.  But I deny that he ever
did anything for human liberty.  While Mr. Wesley was fighting the
Devil and giving his experience with witches and wizards, Thomas
Paine helped to found a free nation, helped to enrich the air with
another flag.  Wesley was right on one thing, though.  He was
opposed to slavery, and, I believe, called it the sum of all
villainies.  I have always been obliged to him for that.  I do not
think he said it because he was a Methodist; but Methodism, as he
understood it, did not prevent his saying it, and Methodism as
others understood it, did not prevent men from being slaveholders,
did not prevent them from selling babes from mothers, and in the
name of God beating the naked back of toil.  I think, on the whole,
Paine did more for the world than Mr. Wesley.  The difference
between an average Methodist and an average Episcopalian is not
worth quarreling about.  But the difference between a man who
believes in despotism and one who believes in liberty is almost
infinite.  Wesley changed Episcopalians into Methodists; Paine
turned lickspittles into men.  Let it be understood, once for all,
that I have never claimed that Paine was perfect.  I was very glad
that the reverend gentleman admitted that he was a patriot and the
foe of tyrants; that he sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended
the helpless; that he favored religious toleration, and that he
weakened the power of the Catholic Church.  I am glad that he made
these admissions.  Whenever it can be truthfully said of a man that
he loved his country, hated tyranny, sympathized with the oppressed,
and befriended the helpless, nothing more is necessary.  If God
can afford to damn such a man, such a man can afford to be damned.
While Paine was the foe of tyrants, Christians were the tyrants.
When he sympathized with the oppressed, the oppressed were the
victims of Christians.  When he befriended the helpless, the helpless
were the victims of Christians.  Paine never founded an inquisition;
never tortured a human being; never hoped that anybody's tongue
would be paralyzed, and was always opposed to private chaplains.

It might be well for the reverend gentleman to continue his
comparisons, and find eminent Christians to put, for instance,
along with Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science; somebody by the
side of Darwin, as a naturalist; some gentleman in England to stand
with Tyndall, or Huxley; some Christian German to stand with Haeckel
and Helmholtz.  May be he knows some Christian statesman that he
would compare with Gambetta.  I would advise him to continue his
parallels.

_Question_.  What have you to say of the Rev. Dr. Fulton?

_Answer_.  The Rev. Dr. Fulton is a great friend of mine.  I am
extremely sorry to find that he still believes in a personal Devil,
and I greatly regret that he imagines that this Devil has so much
power that he can take possession of a human being and deprive God
of their services.  It is in sorrow and not in anger, that I find
that he still believes in this ancient superstition.  I also regret
that he imagines that I am leading young men to eternal ruin.  It
occurs to me that if there is an infinite God, he ought not to
allow anybody to lead young men to eternal ruin.  If anything I
have said, or am going to say, has a tendency to lead young men to
eternal ruin, I hope that if there is a God with the power to
prevent me, that he will use it.  Dr. Fulton admits that in politics
I am on the right side.  I presume he makes this concession because
he is a Republican.  I am in favor of universal education, of
absolute intellectual liberty.  I am in favor, also, of equal rights
to all.  As I have said before we have spent millions and millions
of dollars and rivers of blood to free the bodies of men; in other
words, we have been freeing the cages.  My proposition now is to
give a little liberty to the birds.  I am not willing to stop where
a man can simply reap the fruit of his hand.  I wish him, also, to
enjoy the liberty of his brain.  I am not against any truth in the
New Testament.  I did say that I objected to religion because it
made enemies and not friends.  The Rev. Dr. says that is one reason
why he likes religion.  Dr. Fulton tells me that the Bible is the
gift of God to man.  He also tells me that the Bible is true, and
that God is its author.  If the Bible is true and God is its author,
then God was in favor of slavery four thousand years ago.  He was
also in favor of polygamy and religious intolerance.  In other
words, four thousand years ago he occupied the exact position the
Devil is supposed to occupy now.  If the Bible teaches anything it
teaches man to enslave his brother, that is to say, if his brother
is a heathen.  The God of the Bible always hated heathens.  Dr.
Fulton also says that the Bible is the basis of all law.  Yet, if
the Legislature of New York would re-enact next winter the Mosaic
code, the members might consider themselves lucky if they were not
hung upon their return home.  Probably Dr. Fulton thinks that had
it not been for the Ten Commandments, nobody would ever have thought
that stealing was wrong.  I have always had an idea that men objected
to stealing because the industrious did not wish to support the
idle; and I have a notion that there has always been a law against
murder, because a large majority of people have always objected to
being murdered.  If he will read his Old Testament with care, he
will find that God violated most of his own commandments--all except
that "Thou shalt worship no other God before me," and, may be, the
commandment against work on the Sabbath day.  With these two
exceptions I am satisfied that God himself violated all the rest.
He told his chosen people to rob the Gentiles; that violated the
commandment against stealing.  He said himself that he had sent
out lying spirits; that certainly was a violation of another
commandment.  He ordered soldiers to kill men, women and babes;
that was a violation of another.  He also told them to divide the
maidens among the soldiers; that was a substantial violation of
another.  One of the commandments was that you should not covet
your neighbor's property.  In that commandment you will find that
a man's wife is put on an equality with his ox.  Yet his chosen
people were allowed not only to covet the property of the Gentiles,
but to take it.  If Dr. Fulton will read a little more, he will
find that all the good laws in the Decalogue had been in force in
Egypt a century before Moses was born.  He will find that like laws
and many better ones were in force in India and China, long before
Moses knew what a bulrush was.  If he will think a little while,
he will find that one of the Ten Commandments, the one on the
subject of graven images, was bad.  The result of that was that
Palestine never produced a painter, or a sculptor, and that no Jew
became famous in art until long after the destruction of Jerusalem.
A commandment that robs a people of painting and statuary is not
a good one.  The idea of the Bible being the basis of law is almost
too silly to be seriously refuted.  I admit that I did say that
Shakespeare was the greatest man who ever lived; and Dr. Fulton
says in regard to this statement, "What foolishness!"  He then
proceeds to insult his audience by telling them that while many of
them have copies of Shakespeare's works in their houses, they have
not read twenty pages of them.  This fact may account for their
attending his church and being satisfied with that sermon.  I do
not believe to-day that Shakespeare is more influential than the
Bible, but what influence Shakespeare has, is for good.  No man
can read it without having his intellectual wealth increased.  When
you read it, it is not necessary to throw away your reason.  Neither
will you be damned if you do not understand it.  It is a book that
appeals to everything in the human brain.  In that book can be
found the wisdom of all ages.  Long after the Bible has passed out
of existence, the name of Shakespeare will lead the intellectual
roster of the world.  Dr. Fulton says there is not one work in the
Bible that teaches that slavery or polygamy is right.  He also
states that I know it.  If language has meaning--if words have
sense, or the power to convey thought,--what did God mean when he
told the Israelites to buy of the heathen round about, and that
the heathen should be their bondmen and bondmaids forever?

What did God mean when he said, If a man strike his servant so he
dies, he should not be punished, because his servant was his money?
Passages like these can be quoted beyond the space that any paper
is willing to give.  Yet the Rev. Dr. Fulton denies that the Old
Testament upholds slavery.  I would like to ask him if the Old
Testament is in favor of religious toleration?  If God wrote the
Old Testament and afterward came upon the earth as Jesus Christ,
and taught a new religion, and the Jews crucified him, was this
not in accordance with his own law, and was he not, after all, the
victim of himself?

_Question_.  What about the other ministers?

_Answer_.  Well, I see in the _Herald_ that some ten have said that
they would reply to me.  I have selected the two, simply because
they came first.  I think they are about as poor as any; and you
know it is natural to attack those who are the easiest answered.
All these ministers are now acting as my agents, and are doing me
all the good they can by saying all the bad things about me they
can think of.  They imagine that their congregations have not grown,
and they talk to them as though they were living in the seventeenth
instead of the nineteenth century.  The truth is, the pews are
beyond the pulpit, and the modern sheep are now protecting the
shepherds.

_Question_.  Have you noticed a great change in public sentiment
in the last three or four years?

_Answer_.  Yes, I think there are ten times as many Infidels to-
day as there were ten years ago.  I am amazed at the great change
that has taken place in public opinion.  The churches are not
getting along well.  There are hundreds and hundreds who have not
had a new member in a year.  The young men are not satisfied with
the old ideas.  They find that the church, after all, is opposed
to learning; that it is the enemy of progress; that it says to
every young man, "Go slow.  Don't allow your knowledge to puff you
up.  Recollect that reason is a dangerous thing.  You had better
be a little ignorant here for the sake of being an angel hereafter,
than quite a smart young man and get damned at last."  The church
warns them against Humboldt and Darwin, and tells them how much
nobler it is to come from mud than from monkeys; that they were
made from mud.  Every college professor is afraid to tell what he
thinks, and every student detects the cowardice.  The result is
that the young men have lost confidence in the creeds of the day
and propose to do a little thinking for themselves.  They still
have a kind of tender pity for the old folks, and pretend to believe
some things they do not, rather than hurt grandmother's feelings.
In the presence of the preachers they talk about the weather or
other harmless subjects, for fear of bruising the spirit of their
pastor.  Every minister likes to consider himself as a brave shepherd
leading the lambs through the green pastures and defending them at
night from Infidel wolves.  All this he does for a certain share
of the wool.  Others regard the church as a kind of social
organization, as a good way to get into society.  They wish to
attend sociables, drink tea, and contribute for the conversion of
the heathen.  It is always so pleasant to think that there is
somebody worse than you are, whose reformation you can help pay
for.  I find, too, that the young women are getting tired of the
old doctrines, and that everywhere, all over this country, the
power of the pulpit wanes and weakens.  I find in my lectures that
the applause is just in proportion to the radicalism of the thought
expressed.  Our war was a great educator, when the whole people of
the North rose up grandly in favor of human liberty.  For many
years the great question of human rights was discussed from every
stump.  Every paper was filled with splendid sentiments.  An
application of those doctrines--doctrines born in war--will forever
do away with the bondage of superstition.  When man has been free
in body for a little time, he will become free in mind, and the
man who says, "I have a equal right with other men to work and reap
the reward of my labor," will say, "I have, also, an equal right
to think and reap the reward of my thought."

In old times there was a great difference between a clergyman and
a layman.  The clergyman was educated; the peasant was ignorant.
The tables have been turned.  The thought of the world is with the
laymen.  They are the intellectual pioneers, the mental leaders,
and the ministers are following on behind, predicting failure and
disaster, sighing for the good old times when their word ended
discussion.  There is another good thing, and that is the revision
of the Bible.  Hundreds of passages have been found to be
interpolations, and future revisers will find hundreds more.  The
foundation crumbles.  That book, called the basis of all law and
civilization, has to be civilized itself.  We have outgrown it.
Our laws are better; our institutions grander; our objects and aims
nobler and higher.

_Question_.  Do many people write to you upon this subject; and
what spirit do they manifest?

_Answer_.  Yes, I get a great many anonymous letters--some letters
in which God is asked to strike me dead, others of an exceedingly
insulting character, others almost idiotic, others exceedingly
malicious, and others insane, others written in an exceedingly good
spirit, winding up with the information that I must certainly be
damned.  Others express wonder that God allowed me to live at all,
and that, having made the mistake, he does not instantly correct
it by killing me.  Others prophesy that I will yet be a minister
of the gospel; but, as there has never been any softening of the
brain in our family, I imagine that the prophecy will never by
fulfilled.  Lately, on opening a letter and seeing that it is upon
this subject, and without a signature, I throw it aside without
reading.  I have so often found them to be so grossly ignorant,
insulting and malicious, that as a rule I read them no more.

_Question_.  Of the hundreds of people who call upon you nearly
every day to ask your help, do any of them ever discriminate against
you on account of your Infidelity?

_Answer_.  No one who has asked a favor of me objects to my religion,
or, rather, to my lack of it.  A great many people do come to me
for assistance of one kind or another.  But I have never yet asked
a man or woman whether they were religious or not, to what church
they belonged, or any questions upon the subject.  I think I have
done favors for persons of most denominations.  It never occurs to
me whether they are Christians or Infidels.  I do not care.  Of
course, I do not expect that Christians will treat me the same as
though I belonged to their church.  I have never expected it.  In
some instances I have been disappointed.  I have some excellent
friends who disagree with me entirely upon the subject of religion.
My real opinion is that secretly they like me because I am not a
Christian, and those who do not like me envy the liberty I enjoy.

--New York correspondent, _Chicago Times_, May 29, 1881.


GUITEAU AND HIS CRIME.*

[* Our "Royal Bob" was found by _The Gazette_, in the gloaming of
a delicious evening, during the past week, within the open portals
of his friendly residence, dedicated by the gracious presence within
to a simple and cordial hospitality, to the charms of friendship and
the freedom of an abounding comradeship.  With intellectual and
untrammeled life, a generous, wise and genial host, whoever enters
finds a welcome, seasoned with kindly wit and Attic humor, a poetic
insight and a delicious frankness which renders an evening there a
veritable symposium.  The wayfarer who passes is charmed, and he 

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