Chapter XVI: Part 16

I am saying nothing against the charity of Christians; nothing against any kindness or goodness. But I say the Christians, in my judgment, have done more harm than they have done good. They may talk of the asylums they have built, but they have not built asylums enough to hold the people who have been driven insane by their teachings. Orthodox religion has opposed liberty. It has opposed investigation and free thought. If all the churches in Europe had been observatories, if the cathedrals had been universities where facts were taught and where nature was studied, if all the priests had been real teachers, this world would have been far, far beyond what it is to-day.

There is an idea that Christianity is positive, and Infidelity is negative. If this be so, then falsehood is positive and truth is negative. What I contend is that Infidelity is a positive religion; that Christianity is a negative religion. Christianity denies and Infidelity admits. Infidelity stands by facts; it demonstrates by the conclusions of the reason. Infidelity does all it can to develop the brain and the heart of man. That is positive. Religion asks man to give up this world for one he knows nothing about. That is negative. I stand by the religion of reason. I stand by the dogmas of demonstration.

CRUELTY IN THE ELMIRA REFORMATORY.

IN my judgment, no human being was ever made better, nobler, by being whipped or clubbed.

Mr. Brockway, according to his own testimony, is simply a savage. He belongs to the Dark Ages--to the Inquisition, to the torture-chamber, and he needs reforming more than any prisoner under his control. To put any man within his power is in itself a crime. Mr. Brockway is a believer in cruelty--an apostle of brutality. He beats and bruises flesh to satisfy his conscience--his sense of duty. He wields the club himself because he enjoys the agony he inflicts.

When a poor wretch, having reached the limit of endurance, submits or becomes unconscious, he is regarded as reformed. During the remainder of his term he trembles and obeys. But he is not reformed. In his heart is the flame of hatred, the desire for revenge; and he returns to society far worse than when he entered the prison.

Mr. Brockway should either be removed or locked up, and the Elmira Reformatory should be superintended by some civilized man--some man with brain enough to know, and heart enough to feel.

I do not believe that one brute, by whipping, beating and lacerating the flesh of another, can reform him. The lash will neither develop the brain nor cultivate the heart. There should be no bruising, no scarring of the body in families, in schools, in reformatories, or prisons. A civilized man does not believe in the methods of savagery. Brutality has been tried for thousands of years and through all these years it has been a failure.

Criminals have been flogged, mutilated and maimed, tortured in a thousand ways, and the only effect was to demoralize, harden and degrade society and increase the number of crimes. In the army and navy, soldiers and sailors were flogged to death, and everywhere by church and state the torture of the helpless was practiced and upheld.

Only a few years ago there were two hundred and twenty-three offences punished with death in England. Those who wished to reform this savage code were denounced as the enemies of morality and law. They were regarded as weak and sentimental.

At last the English code was reformed through the efforts of men who had brain and heart. But it is a significant fact that no bishop of the Episcopal Church, sitting in the House of Lords, ever voted for the repeal of one of those savage laws. Possibly this fact throws light on the recent poetic and Christian declaration by Bishop Potter to the effect that "there are certain criminals who can only be made to realize through their hides the fact that the State has laws to which the individual must be obedient."

This orthodox remark has the true apostolic ring, and is in perfect accord with the history of the church. But it does not accord with the intelligence and philanthropy of our time. Let us develop the brain by education, the heart by kindness. Let us remember that criminals are produced by conditions, and let us do what we can to change the conditions and to reform the criminals.

LAW'S DELAY.

THE object of a trial is not to convict--neither is it to acquit. The object is to ascertain the truth by legal testimony and in accordance with law.

In this country we give the accused the benefit of all reasonable doubts. We insist that his guilt shall be really established by competent testimony.

We also allow the accused to take exceptions to the rulings of the judge before whom he is tried, and to the verdict of the jury, and to have these exceptions passed upon by a higher court.

We also insist that he shall be tried by an impartial jury, and that before he can be found guilty all the jurors must unite in the verdict.

Some people, not on trial for any crime, object to our methods. They say that time is wasted in getting an impartial jury; that more time is wasted because appeals are allowed, and that by reason of insisting on a strict compliance with law in all respects, trials sometimes linger for years, and that in many instances the guilty escape.

No one, so far as I know, asks that men shall be tried by partial and prejudiced jurors, or that judges shall be allowed to disregard the law for the sake of securing convictions, or that verdicts shall be allowed to stand unsupported by sufficient legal evidence. Yet they talk as if they asked for these very things. We must remember that revenge is always in haste, and that justice can always afford to wait until the evidence is actually heard.

There should be no delay except that which is caused by taking the time to find the truth. Without such delay courts become mobs, before which, trials in a legal sense are impossible. It might be better, in a city like New York, to have the grand jury in almost perpetual session, so that a man charged with crime could be immediately indicted and immediately tried. So, the highest court to which appeals are taken should be in almost constant session, in order that all appeals might be quickly decided.

But we do not wish to take away the right of appeal. That right tends to civilize the trial judge, reduces to a minimum his arbitrary power, puts his hatreds and passions in the keeping and control of his intelligence. That right of appeal has an excellent effect on the jury, because they know that their verdict may not be the last word. The appeal, where the accused is guilty, does not take the sword from the State, but it is a shield for the innocent.

In England there is no appeal. The trials are shorter, the judges more arbitrary, the juries subservient, and the verdict often depends on the prejudice of the judge. The judge knows that he has the last guess--that he cannot be reviewed--and in the passion often engendered by the conflict of trial he acts much like a wild beast.

The case of Mrs. Maybrick is exactly in point, and shows how dangerous it is to clothe the trial judge with supreme power.

Without doubt there is in this country too much delay, and this, it seems to me, can be avoided without putting the life or liberty of innocent persons in peril. Take only such time as may be necessary to give the accused a fair trial, before an impartial jury, under and in accordance with the established forms of law, and to allow an appeal to the highest court.

The State in which a criminal cannot have an impartial trial is not civilized. People who demand the conviction of the accused without regard to the forms of law are savages.

But there is another side to this question. Many people are losing confidence in the idea that punishment reforms the convict, or that capital punishment materially decreases capital crimes.

My own opinion is that ordinary criminals should, if possible, be reformed, and that murderers and desperate wretches should be imprisoned for life. I am inclined to believe that our prisons make more criminals than they reform; that places like the Reformatory at Elmira plant and cultivate the seeds of crime.

The State should never seek revenge; neither should it put in peril the life or liberty of the accused for the sake of a hasty trial, or by the denial of appeal.

In my judgment, defective as our criminal courts and methods are, they are far better than the English.

Our judges are kinder, more humane; our juries nearer independent, and our methods better calculated to ascertain the truth.

THE BIGOTRY OF COLLEGES.

* A newspaper dispatch from Lawrence, Kansas, published
yesterday, stated that Col. Robert O. Ingersoll had been
invited by the law students of the Kansas State University
to address them at the commencement exercises, and that the
faculty council had objected and had invited Chauncey M.
Depew instead.

The dispatch also stared that the council had notified
representatives of the law school that if they insisted on
the great Agnostic speaking before the school, the faculty
would take heroic measures to thwart their design.

It was also stated that the law students had made it clearly
understood that the lecture Ingersoll had been invited to
deliver was to be on the subject of law, and that his views
on religion, the Bible and the Deity were not to be alluded
to, and they considered that the faculty council had
"subjected them to an insult," and had gone out of its way,
also, to affront Colonel Ingersoll without cause.

Colonel Ingersoll, when seen yesterday and questioned about
the matter, took it, as he does all things of that nature,
philosophically and in a true manly spirit.

Chauncey M. Depew was seen at his residence, No. 43 West
Fifty-fourth Street, last night and asked if he had been
invited to address the students of the Kansas University in
the place of Colonel Ingersoll. He said he had not.

"Would you go if you were invited?" he was asked.

"No; I would not," he answered. "You see, I am so busy here;
besides, my social and semi-political engagements are such
that I would not have time to go to such a distant point,
anyhow.

"No, I do not care to express any opinion regarding the
action of the faculty council of the Kansas University, but
I consider Colonel Ingersoll one of the greatest intellects
of the century, from whose teaching all can profit."--The
Journal, New York, January 24, im.

UNIVERSITIES are naturally conservative. They know that if suspected of being really scientific, orthodox Christians will keep their sons away, so they pander to the superstitions of the times.

Most of the universities are exceedingly poor, and poverty is the enemy of independence. Universities, like people, have the instinct of self-preservation. The University of Kansas is like the rest.

The faculty of Cornell, upon precisely the same question, took exactly the same action, and the faculty of the University of Missouri did the same. These institutions must be the friends and defenders of superstition.

The Vanderbilt College, or University of Tennessee, discharged Professor Winchell because he differed with the author of Genesis on geology.

These colleges act as they must, and we should blame nobody. If Humboldt and Darwin were now alive they would not be allowed to teach in these institutions of "learning."

We need not find fault with the president and professors. They want to keep their places. The probability is that they would like to do better--that they desire to be free, and, if free, would, with all their hearts, welcome the truth. Still, these universities seem to do good. The minds of their students are developed to that degree, that they naturally turn to me as the defender of their thoughts.

This gives me great hope for the future. The young, the growing, the enthusiastic, are on my side. All the students who have selected me are my friends, and I thank them with all my heart.

A YOUNG MAN'S CHANCES TO-DAY.

* Col. Robert G. Ingersoll represents what is intellectually
highest among the whole world's opponents of religion. He
counts theology as the science of a superstition. He decries
religion as it exists, and holds that the broadest thing a
man, or all human nature, can do is to acknowledge ignorance
when it cannot know. He accepts nothing on faith. He is the
American who is forever asking, "Why?"--who demands a reason
and material proof before believing.

As Christianity's corner-stone is faith, he rejects
Christianity, and argues that all men who are broad enough
to know when to narrow their ideas down to fact or
demonstrable theory must reject it. Believe as he does or
not, all Americans must be interested in him. His mind is
marvelous, his tongue is silvern, his logic is invincible--
as logic.

Col. Ingersoll is a shining example of the oft-quoted fact
that, given mental ability, health and industry, a young man
may make for himself whatever place in life he desires and
is fitted to fill. His early advantages were limited, for
his father, a Congregational minister whose field of labor
often changed, was a man of far too small an income to send
his sons to college. Whatever of mental training the young
man had he was obliged to get by reason of his own exertion,
and his splendid triumphs as an orator, and his solid
achievements as a lawyer are all the result of his own
efforts. The only help he had was that which is the common
heritage of all American young men--the chance to fight even
handed for success. It is not surprising, therefore, that
Col. Ingersoll feels a deep interest in every bright young
man of his acquaintance who is struggling manfully for the
glittering prize so brilliantly won by the great Agnostic
himself. He does not believe, however, that the young man
who goes out mto the world nowadays to seek his fortune has
so easy a battle to fight as had the young men of thirty
years ago. In conversation with the writer Col. Ingersoll
spoke earnestly upon this subject.

Col. Ingersoll's views regarding the Bible and Christianity
were not generally understood by the public for some time
after he had become famous as an orator, although he began
to diverge from orthodoxy when quite young, and was as
pronounced an Agnostic when he went into the army, as he is
now.

Col. Ingersoll is an inch less than six feet tall, and
weighs ten more than two hundred pounds. He will be sixty-
one next August, and his hair is snowy. His shoulders are
broad and as straight as they were eighteen years ago when
he electrified a people and place! his own name upon the
list of a nation's greatest orators with his matchless
"Plumed Knight" speech in nominating

James G. Blaine for the presidency. His blue eyes look
straight into yours when he speaks to you, and his sentences
are punctuated by engaging little tricks of facial
expression--now the brow is criss-crossed with the lines of
a frown, sometimes quizzical and sometimes indignant--next,
the smooth-shaven lips break into a curving smile, which may
grow into a broad grin if the point just made were a
humorous one, and this is quite likely to be followed by a
look of sueh intense earnestness that you wonder if he will
ever smile again. And all the time his eyes flash,
illuminating, sometimes anticipatory, glances that add
immensely to the clearness with which the thought he is
expressing is set before you. He delights to tell a story,
and he never tells any but good ones, but--and in this he is
like Lincoln--he is apt to use his stories to drive some
proposition home. This is almost invariably true, even when
he sets out to spin a yarn for the story's simple sake. His
mentality seems to be duplex, quadruplex, multiplex, if you
please--and while his lips and tongue are effectively
delivering the story, his wonderful brain is, seemingly,
unconsciously applying the point of the story to the proving
of a pet theory, and when the tale has been told the verbal
application follows.

His birthplace was Dresden, N. Y. His early boyhood was
passed in New York State and his youth and young manhood in
Illinois, Ohio and Wisconsin.

His handgrasp is hearty and his manner and words are the
very essence of straightforward directness. I called at his
office once when the Colonel was closeted with a person who
wished to retain him in a law case involving a good deal of
money. After a bit I was told that I could see him, and as I
entered he was saying: "The case can't be won, for you are
in the wrong. I don't want it."

"But," pleaded the would-be client, "It seems to me that a
good deal can be done in such a case by the way it is
handled before the jury, and I thought if you were to be the
man I might get a verdict."

"No, sir," was the reply, and the words fell like the lead
of a plumb line; "I won't take it. Good morning, sir."

It has been sometimes said, indulgently, of Col. Ingersoll
that he is indolent, but no one can hold that view who is at
all familiar with him or his work. As a matter of fact, his
industry is phenomenal, though, indeed, it is not carried on
after the fashion of less brainy men. When he has an
important case ahead of him his devotion to the mastery of
its details absorbs him at once and completely. It sometimes
becomes necessary for him to take up a line of chemical
inquiry entirely new to him; again, to elaborate
genealogical researches are necessary; still again, it may
be essential for him to thoroughly inform himself concerning
hitherto uninvestigated local historical records. But
whatever is needful to be studied he studies, and so
thoroughly that his mind becomes saturated with the
knowledge required. And once acquired no sort of information
ever leaves him, for he has a memory quite as marvelous as
any other of his altogether marvelous characteristics.

It is the same when he has an address to prepare. Every
authority that can be consulted upon the subject to be
treated in the address, is consulted, and often the material
that suggests some of the most telling points is one which
no one but Ingersoll himself would think of referring to.
Here again his wonderful memory stands him in good stead for
he has packed away within the convolutions of his brain a
lot of facts that bear upon almost every conceivable branch
of human thought or investigation.

His memory is quite as retentive of the features of a man he
has seen as of other matters; it retains voices also, as a
war time friend of his discovered last summer. It was a busy
day with the Colonel, who had given instructions to his
office boy that under no circumstances was he to be
disturbed; so when his old friend called he was told that
Col. Ingersoll could not see him "But," said the visitor: "I
must see him. I haven't seen him for twenty years; I am
going out of town this afternoon, and I wouldn't miss
talking with him for a few minutes for a good deal of
money."

"Well," said the boy, "he wasn't to be disturbed by
anybody."

At this moment the door of the Colonel's private office
opened, and the Colonel's portly form appeared upon the
scene.

"Why, Maj. Blank," he said, "come in. I did tell the boy I
wouldn't see anybody, but you are more important than the
biggest law case in the world."

The Colonel's memory had retained the sound of the major's
voice, and because of that, the latter was not obliged to
leave New York without seeing and renewing his old
acquaintance.

Col. Ingersoll's retorts are as quick as a flash-light and
as searching. One of them was so startling and so effective
as to give a certain famous long drawn out railroad suit the
nickname. "The Ananias and Sapphira ease." Ingersoll was
speaking and had made certain statements highly damaging to
the other side, in such a way as to thoroughly anger a
member of the opposing counsel, who suddenly interrupted the
speaker with the abrupt and sarcastic remark:

"I suppose the Colonel, in the nature of things, never heard
of the story of Ananias ana Sapphira."

There were those present who expected to witness an angry
outburst on the part of Ingersoll in response to this plain
implication that his statement had not the quality of
veracity, but they were disappointed. Ingersoll didn't even
get angry. He turned slightly, fixed his limpid blue eyes
upon the speaker, and looked cherubically. Then he gently
drawled out.

"Oh, yes, I have, yes, I have. And I've watched the
gentleman who has just spoken all through this case with a
curious Interest. I've been expecting every once in a while
to see him drop dead, but he seems to be all right down to
the present moment."

Ingersoll never gets angry when he is interrupted, even if
it is in the middle of an address or a lecture. A man
interrupted him in Cincinnati once, cutting right into one
of the lecturer's most resonant periods with a yell:

"That's a lie. Bob lngersoll, and you know it."

The audience was in an uproar in an instant, and cries of
"Put him out!" "Throw him down stairs!" and the like were
heard from all parts of the house. Ingersoll stopped talking
for a moment, and held up his hands, smiling.

"Don't hurt the man," he said. "He thinks he is right. But
let me explain this thing for his especial benefit."

Then he reasoned the matter out in language so simple and
plain that no one of any intelligence whatever could fail to
comprehend. The man was not ejected, but sat through the
entire address, and at the close asked the privilege of
begging the lecturer's pardon.

Like most men of genius, Colonel lngersoll is a passionate
lover of music, and the harmonies of Wagner seem to him to
be the very acme of musical expression....

Notwithstanding his thoroughly heretical beliefs or lack of
beliefs, or, as he would say, because of them, Colonel
lngersoll is a very tender-hearted man. No one has ever made
so strong an argument against vivisection in the alleged
interests of science as lngersoll did in a speech a few
years ago. To the presentation of his views against the
refinements of scientific cruelty he brought his most vivid
imagination, his most careful thought and his most
impassioned oratory.

Colonel Ingersoll's popularity with those who know him is
proverbial. The clerks in his offices not only admire him
for his ability and his achievements, but they esteem him
for his kindliness of heart and his invariable courtesy in
his intercourse with them. His offices are located in one of
the buildings devoted to corporations and professional men
on the lower part of Nassau street and consist of three
rooms. The one used by the head of the firm is farthest from
the entrance. All are furnished in solid black walnut. In
the Colonel's room there is a picture of his loved brother
Ebon, and hanging below the frame thereof is the tin sign
that the two brothers hung out for a shingle when they went
into the law business in Peoria. There are also pictures of
a judge or two. The desks in all the rooms are littered with
papers. Books are piled to the ceiling. Everywhere there is
an air of personal freedom. There is no servility either to
clients or the head of the business, but there is everywhere
an informal courtesy somewhat akin to that which is born of
a fueling of great comradeship.

Of the Colonel's ideal home life the world has often been
told. He lives during the winter at his town house in Fifth
Avenue; in the summer at Dobbs Ferry, a charming place a few
miles up the Hudson from New York.--Boston Herald, July,
1894.

A FEW years ago there were many thousand miles of railroads to be built, a great many towns and cities to be located, constructed and filled; vast areas of uncultivated land were waiting for the plow, vast forests the axe, and thousands of mines were longing to be opened. In those days every young man of energy and industry had a future. The professions were not overcrowded; there were more patients than doctors, more litigants than lawyers, more buyers of goods than merchants. The young man of that time who was raised on a farm got a little education, taught school, read law or medicine--some of the weaker ones read theology--and there seemed to be plenty of room, plenty of avenues to success and distinction.

So, too, a few years ago a political life was considered honorable, and so in politics there were many great careers. So, hundreds of towns wanted newspapers, and in each of those towns there was an opening for some energetic young man. At that time the plant cost but little; a few dollars purchased the press--the young publisher could get the paper stock on credit.

Now the railroads have all been built; the canals are finished; the cities have been located; the outside property has been cut into lots, and sold and mortgaged many times over. Now it requires great capital to go into business. The individual is counting for less and less; the corporation, the trust, for more and more. Now a great merchant employs hundreds of clerks; a few years ago most of those now clerks would have been merchants. And so it seems to be in nearly every department of life. Of course, I do not know what inventions may leap from the brains of the future; there may be millions and millions of fortunes yet to be made in that direction, but of that I am not speaking.

So, I think that a few years ago the chances were far more numerous and favorable to young men who wished to make a name for themselves, and to succeed in some department of human energy than now.

In savage life a living is very easy to get. Most any savage can hunt or fish; consequently there are few failures. But in civilized life competition becomes stronger and sharper; consequently, the percentage of failures increases, and this seems to be the law. The individual is constantly counting for less. It may be that, on the average, people live better than they did formerly, that they have more to eat, drink and wear; but the individual horizon has lessened; it is not so wide and cloudless as formerly. So I say that the chances for great fortunes, for great success, are growing less and less.

I think a young man should do that which is easiest for him to do, provided there is an opportunity; if there is none, then he should take the next. The first object of every young man should be to be self-supporting, no matter in what direction--be independent. He should avoid being a clerk and he should avoid giving his future into the hands of any one person. He should endeavor to get a business in which the community will be his patron, and whether he is to be a lawyer, a doctor or a day-laborer depends on how much he has mixed mind with muscle.

If a young man imagines that he has an aptitude for public speaking--that is, if he has a great desire to make his ideas known to the world--the probability is that the desire will choose the way, time and place for him to make the effort.

If he really has something to say, there will be plenty to listen. If he is so carried away with his subject, is so in earnest that he becomes an instrumentality of his thought--so that he is forgotten by himself; so that he cares neither for applause nor censure--simply caring to present his thoughts in the highest and best and most comprehensive way, the probability is that he will be an orator.

I think oratory is something that cannot be taught. Undoubtedly a man can learn to be a fair talker. He can by practice learn to present his ideas consecutively, clearly and in what you may call "form," but there is as much difference between this and an oration as there is between a skeleton and a living human being clad in sensitive, throbbing flesh.

There are millions of skeleton makers, millions of people who can express what may be called "the bones" of a discourse, but not one in a million who can clothe these bones.

You can no more teach a man to be an orator than you can teach him to be an artist or a poet of the first class. When you teach him, there is the same difference between the man who is taught, and the man who is what he is by virtue of a natural aptitude, that there is between a pump and a spring--between a canal and a river--between April rain and water-works. It is a question of capacity and feeling--not of education. There are some things that you can tell an orator not to do. For instance, he should never drink water while talking, because the interest is broken, and for the moment he loses control of his audience. He should never look at his watch for the same reason. He should never talk about himself. He should never deal in personalities. He should never tell long stories, and if he tells any story he should never say that it is a true story, and that he knew the parties. This makes it a question of veracity instead of a question of art. He should never clog his discourse with details. He should never dwell upon particulars--he should touch universals, because the great truths are for all time.

If he wants to know something, if he wishes to feel something, let him read Shakespeare. Let him listen to the music of Wagner, of Beethoven, or Schubert. If he wishes to express himself in the highest and most perfect form, let him become familiar with the great paintings of the world--with the great statues--all these will lend grace, will give movement and passion and rhythm to his words. A great orator puts into his speech the perfume, the feelings, the intensity of all the great and beautiful and marvelous things that he has seen and heard and felt. An orator must be a poet, a metaphysician, a logician--and above all, must have sympathy with all.

SCIENCE AND SENTIMENT.

IT was thought at one time by many that science would do away with poetry--that it was the enemy of the imagination. We know now that is not true. We know that science goes hand in hand with imagination. We know that it is in the highest degree poetic and that the old ideas once considered so beautiful are flat and stale. Compare Kepler's laws with the old Greek idea that the planets were boosted or pushed by angels. The more we know, the more beauty, the more poetry we find. Ignorance is not the mother of the poetic or artistic.

So, some people imagine that science will do away with sentiment. In my judgment, science will not only increase sentiment but sense.

A person will be attracted to another for a thousand reasons, and why a person is attracted to another, may, and in some degree will, depend upon the intellectual, artistic and ethical development of each.

The handsomest girl in Zululand might not be attractive to Herbert Spencer, and the fairest girl in England might not be able to hasten the pulse of a Choctaw brave. This does not prove that there is any lack of sentiment. Men are influenced according to their capacity, their temperament, their knowledge.

Some men fall in love with a small waist, an arched instep or curly hair, without the slightest regard to mind or muscle. This we call sentiment.

Now, educate such men, develop their brains, enlarge their intellectual horizon, teach them something of the laws of health, and then they may fall in love with women because they are developed grandly in body and mind. The sentiment is still there--still controls--but back of the sentiment is science.

Sentiment can never be destroyed, and love will forever rule the human race.

Thousands, millions of people fear that science will destroy not only poetry, not only sentiment, but religion. This fear is idiotic. Science will destroy superstition, but it will not injure true religion. Science is the foundation of real religion. Science teaches us the consequences of actions, the rights and duties of all. Without science there can be no real religion.

Only those who live on the labor of the ignorant are the enemies of science. Real love and real religion are in no danger from science. The more we know the safer all good things are.

Do I think that the marriage of the sickly and diseased ought to be prevented by law?

I have not much confidence in law--in law that I know cannot be carried out. The poor, the sickly, the diseased, as long as they are ignorant, will marry and help fill the world with wretchedness and want.

We must rely on education instead of legislation.

We must teach the consequences of actions. We must show the sickly and diseased what their children will be. We must preach the gospel of the body. I believe the time will come when the public thought will be so great and grand that it will be looked upon as infamous to perpetuate disease--to leave a legacy of agony.

I believe the time will come when men will refuse to fill the future with consumption and insanity. Yes, we shall study ourselves. We shall understand the conditions of health and then we shall say: We are under obligation to put the flags of health in the cheeks of our children.

Even if I should get to heaven and have a harp, I know that I could not bear to see my descendants still on the earth, diseased, deformed, crazed--all suffering the penalties of my ignorance. Let us have more science and more sentiment--more knowledge and more conscience--more liberty and more love.

SOWING AND REAPING.

I HAVE read the sermon on "Sowing and Reaping," and I now understand Mr. Moody better than I did before. The other day, in New York, Mr. Moody said that he implicitly believed the story of Jonah and really thought that he was in the fish for three days.

When I read it I was surprised that a man living in the century of Humboldt, Darwin, Huxley, Spencer and Haeckel, should believe such an absurd and idiotic story.

Now I understand the whole thing. I can account for the amazing credulity of this man. Mr. Moody never read one of my lectures. That accounts for it all, and no wonder that he is a hundred years behind the times. He never read one of my lectures; that is a perfect explanation.

Poor man! He has no idea of what he has lost. He has been living on miracles and mistakes, on falsehood and foolishness, stuffing his mind with absurdities when he could have had truth, facts and good, sound sense.

Poor man!

Probably Mr. Moody has never read one word of Darwin and so he still believes in the Garden of Eden and the talking snake and really thinks that Jehovah took some mud, moulded the form of a man, breathed in its nostrils, stood it up and called it Adam, and that he then took one of Adam's ribs and some more mud and manufactured Eve. Probably he has never read a word written by any great geologist and consequently still believes in the story of the flood. Knowing nothing of astronomy, he still thinks that Joshua stopped the sun.

Poor man! He has neglected Spencer and has no idea of evolution. He thinks that man has, through all the ages, degenerated, the first pair having been perfect. He does not believe that man came from lower forms and has gradually journeyed upward.

He really thinks that the Devil outwitted God and vaccinated the human race with the virus of total depravity.

Poor man!

He knows nothing of the great scientists--of the great thinkers, of the emancipators of the human race; knows nothing of Spinoza, of Voltaire, of Draper, Buckle, of Paine or Renan.

Mr. Moody ought to read something besides the Bible--ought to find out what the really intelligent have thought. He ought to get some new ideas--a few facts--and I think that, after he did so, he would be astonished to find how ignorant and foolish he had been. He is a good man. His heart is fairly good, but his head is almost useless.

The trouble with this sermon, "Sowing and Reaping," is that he contradicts it. I believe that a man must reap what he sows, that every human being must bear the natural consequences of his acts. Actions are good or bad according to their consequences. That is my doctrine.

There is no forgiveness in nature. But Mr. Moody tells us that a man may sow thistles and gather figs, that having acted like a fiend tor seventy years, he can, between his last dose of medicine and his last breath, repent; that he can be washed clean by the blood of the lamb, and that myriads of angels will carry his soul to heaven--in other words, that this man will not reap what he sowed, but what Christ sowed, that this man's thistles will be changed to figs.

This doctrine, to my mind, is not only absurd, but dishonest and corrupting.

This is one of the absurdities in Mr. Moody's theology. The other is that a man can justly be damned for the sin of another.

Nothing can exceed the foolishness of these two ideas--first: "Man can be justly punished forever for the sin of Adam." Second: "Man can be justly rewarded with eternal joy for the goodness of Christ."

Yet the man who believes this, preaches a sermon in which he says that a man must reap what he sows. Orthodox Christians teach exactly the opposite. They teach that no matter what a man sows, no matter how wicked his life has been, that he can by repentance change the crop. That all his sins shall be forgotten and that only the goodness of Christ will be remembered.

Let us see how this works:

Mr. A. has lived a good and useful life, kept his contracts, paid his debts, educated his children, loved his wife and made his home a heaven, but he did not believe in the inspiration of Mr. Moody's Bible. He died and his soul was sent to hell. Mr. Moody says that as a man sows so shall he reap.

Mr. B. lived a useless and wicked life. By his cruelty he drove his wife to insanity, his children became vagrants and beggars, his home was a perfect hell, he committed many crimes, he was a thief, a burglar, a murderer. A few minutes before he was hanged he got religion and his soul went from the scaffold to heaven. And yet Mr. Moody says that as a man sows so shall he reap.

Mr. Moody ought to have a little philosophy--a little good sense.

So Mr. Moody says that only in this life can a man secure the reward of repentance.

Just before a man dies, God loves him--loves him as a mother loves her babe--but a moment after he dies, he sends his soul to hell. In the other world nothing can be done to reform him. The society of God and the angels can have no good effect. Nobody can be made better in heaven. This world is the only place where reform is possible. Here, surrounded by the wicked in the midst of temptations, in the darkness of ignorance, a human being may reform if he is fortunate enough to hear the words of some revival preacher, but when he goes before his maker--before the Trinity--he has no chance. God can do nothing for his soul except to send it to hell.

This shows that the power for good is confined to people in this world and that in the next world God can do nothing to reform his children. This is theology. This is what they call "Tidings of great joy."

Every orthodox creed is savage, ignorant and idiotic.

In the orthodox heaven there is no mercy, no pity. In the orthodox hell there is no hope, no reform. God is an eternal jailer, an everlasting turnkey.

And yet Christians now say that while there may be no fire in hell--no actual flames--yet the lost souls will feel forever the tortures of conscience.

What will conscience trouble the people in hell about? They tell us that they will remember their sins.

Well, what about the souls in heaven? They committed awful sins, they made their fellow-men unhappy. They took the lives of others--sent many to eternal torment. Will they have no conscience? Is hell the only place where souls regret the evil they have done? Have the angels no regret, no remorse, no conscience?

If this be so, heaven must be somewhat worse than hell.

In old times, if people wanted to know anything they asked the preacher. Now they do if they don't.

The Bible has, with intelligent men, lost its authority.

The miracles are now regarded by sensible people as the spawn of ignorance and credulity. On every hand people are looking for facts--for truth--and all religions are taking their places in the museum of myths.

Yes, the people are becoming civilized, and so they are putting out the fires of hell. They are ceasing to believe in a God who seeks eternal revenge.

The people are becoming sensible. They are asking for evidence. They care but little for the winged phantoms of the air--for the ghosts and devils and supposed gods. The people are anxious to be happy here and they want a little heaven in this life.

Theology is a curse. Science is a blessing. We do not need preachers, but teachers; not priests, but thinkers; not churches, but schools; not steeples, but observatories. We want knowledge.

Let us hope that Mr. Moody will read some really useful books.

SHOULD INFIDELS SEND THEIR CHILDREN TO SUNDAY SCHOOL?

SHOULD parents, who are Infidels, unbelievers or Atheists, send their children to Sunday schools and churches to give them the benefit of Christian education?

Parents who do not believe the Bible to be an inspired book should not teach their children that it is. They should be absolutely honest. Hypocrisy is not a virtue, and, as a rule, lies are less valuable than facts.

An unbeliever should not allow the mind of his child to be deformed, stunted and shriveled by superstition. He should not allow the child's imagination to be polluted. Nothing is more outrageous than to take advantage of the helplessness of childhood to sow in the brain the seeds of falsehoods, to imprison the soul in the dungeon of Fear, to teach dimpled infancy the infamous dogma of eternal pain--filling life with the glow and glare of hell.

No unbeliever should allow his child to be tortured in the orthodox inquisitions. He should defend the mind from attack as he would the body. He should recognize the rights of the soul. In the orthodox Sunday schools, children are taught that it is a duty to believe--that evidence is not essential--that faith is independent of facts and that religion is superior to reason. They are taught not to use their natural sense--not to tell what they really think--not to entertain a doubt--not to ask wicked questions, but to accept and believe what their teachers say. In this way the minds of the children are invaded, corrupted and conquered. Would an educated man send his child to a school in which Newton's statement in regard to the attraction of gravitation was denied--in which the law of falling bodies, as given by Galileo, was ridiculed--Kepler's three laws declared to be idiotic, and the rotary motion of the earth held to be utterly absurd?

Why then should an intelligent man allow his child to be taught the geology and astronomy of the Bible? Children should be taught to seek for the truth--to be honest, kind, generous, merciful and just. They should be taught to love liberty and to live to the ideal.

Why then should an unbeliever, an Infidel, send his child to an orthodox Sunday school where he is taught that he has no right to seek for the truth--no right to be mentally honest, and that he will be damned for an honest doubt--where he is taught that God was ferocious, revengeful, heartless as a wild beast--that he drowned millions of his children--that he ordered wars of extermination and told his soldiers to kill gray-haired and trembling age, mothers and children, and to assassinate with the sword of war the babes unborn?

Why should an unbeliever in the Bible send his child to an orthodox Sunday school where he is taught that God was in favor of slavery and told the Jews to buy of the heathen and that they should be their bondmen and bondwomen forever; where he is taught that God upheld polygamy and the degradation of women?

Why should an unbeliever, who believes in the uniformity of Nature, in the unbroken and unbreakable chain of cause and effect, allow his child to be taught that miracles have been performed; that men have gone bodily to heaven; that millions have been miraculously fed with manna and quails; that fire has refused to burn clothes and flesh of men; that iron has been made to float; that the earth and moon have been stopped and that the earth has not only been stopped, but made to turn the other way; that devils inhabit the bodies of men and women; that diseases have been cured with words, and that the dead, with a touch, have been made to live again?

The thoughtful man knows that there is not the slightest evidence that these miracles ever were performed. Why should he allow his children to be stuffed with these foolish and impossible falsehoods? Why should he give his lambs to the care and keeping of the wolves and hyenas of superstition?

Children should be taught only what somebody knows. Guesses should not be palmed off on them as demonstrated facts. If a Christian lived in Constantinople he would not send his children to the mosque to be taught that Mohammed was a prophet of God and that the Koran is an inspired book. Why? Because he does not believe in Mohammed or the Koran. That is reason enough. So, an Agnostic, living in New York, should not allow his children to be taught that the Bible is an inspired book. I use the word "Agnostic" because I prefer it to the word Atheist. As a matter of fact, no one knows that God exists and no one knows that God does not exist. To my mind there is no evidence that God exists--that this world is governed by a being of infinite goodness, wisdom and power, but I do not pretend to know. What I insist upon is that children should not be poisoned--should not be taken advantage of--that they should be treated fairly, honestly--that they should be allowed to develop from the inside instead of being crammed from the outside--that they should be taught to reason, not to believe--to think, to investigate and to use their senses, their minds.

Would a Catholic send his children to a school to be taught that Catholicism is superstition and that Science is the only savior of mankind?

Why then should a free and sensible believer in Science, in the naturalness of the universe, send his child to a Catholic school?

Nothing could be more irrational, foolish and absurd.

My advice to all Agnostics is to keep their children from the orthodox Sunday schools, from the orthodox churches, from the poison of the pulpits.

Teach your children the facts you know. If you do not know, say so. Be as honest as you are ignorant. Do all you can to develop their minds, to the end that they may live useful and happy lives.

Strangle the serpent of superstition that crawls and hisses about the cradle. Keep your children from the augurs, the soothsayers, the medicine-men, the priests of the supernatural. Tell them that all religions have been made by folks and that all the "sacred books" were written by ignorant men.

Teach them that the world is natural. Teach them to be absolutely honest. Do not send them where they will contract diseases of the mind--the leprosy of the soul. Let us do all we can to make them intelligent.

WHAT WOULD YOU SUBSTITUTE FOR THE BIBLE AS A MORAL GUIDE?

* Written for The Boston Investigator.

YOU ask me what I would "substitute for the Bible as a moral guide.".

I know that many people regard the Bible as the only moral guide and believe that in that book only can be found the true and perfect standard of morality.

There are many good precepts, many wise sayings and many good regulations and laws in the Bible, and these are mingled with bad precepts, with foolish sayings, with absurd rules and cruel laws.

But we must remember that the Bible is a collection of many books written centuries apart, and that it in part represents the growth and tells in part the history of a people. We must also remember that the writers treat of many subjects. Many of these writers have nothing to say about right or wrong, about vice or virtue.

The book of Genesis has nothing about morality. There is not a line in it calculated to shed light on the path of conduct. No one can call that book a moral guide. It is made up of myth and miracle, of tradition and legend.

In Exodus we have an account of the manner in which Jehovah delivered the Jews from Egyptian bondage.

We now know that the Jews were never enslaved by the Egyptians; that the entire story is a fiction. We know this, because there is not found in Hebrew a word of Egyptian origin, and there is not found in the language of the Egyptians a word of Hebrew origin. This being so, we know that the Hebrews and Egyptians could not have lived together for hundreds of years.

Certainly Exodus was not written to teach morality. In that book you cannot find one word against human slavery. As a matter of fact, Jehovah was a believer in that institution.

The killing of cattle with disease and hail, the murder of the first-born, so that in every house was death, because the king refused to let the Hebrews go, certainly was not moral; it was fiendish. The writer of that book regarded all the people of Egypt, their children, their flocks and herds, as the property of Pharaoh, and these people and these cattle were killed, not because they had done anything wrong, but simply for the purpose of punishing the king. Is it possible to get any morality out of this history?

All the laws found in Exodus, including the Ten Commandments, so far as they are really good and sensible, were at that time in force among all the peoples of the world.

Murder is, and always was, a crime, and always will be, as long as a majority of people object to being murdered.

Industry always has been and always will be the enemy of larceny.

The nature of man is such that he admires the teller of truth and despises the liar. Among all tribes, among all people, truth-telling has been considered a virtue and false swearing or false speaking a vice.

The love of parents for children is natural, and this love is found among all the animals that live. So the love of children for parents is natural, and was not and cannot be created by law. Love does not spring from a sense of duty, nor does it bow in obedience to commands.

So men and women are not virtuous because of anything in books or creeds.

All the Ten Commandments that are good were old, were the result of experience. The commandments that were original with Jehovah were foolish.

The worship of "any other God" could not have been worse than the worship of Jehovah, and nothing could have been more absurd than the sacredness of the Sabbath.