Chapter I: THINK that all days are substantially alike in the long run. It is no (2)

FATE.--Never hurried, never delayed, passionless, pitiless, patient, keeping the tryst--neither early nor late--there, on the very stroke and center of the instant fixed.

*****

QUIET, and introspective calm come with the afternoon. Toward evening the mind grows satisfied and still. The flare and flicker of youth are gone, and the soul is like the flame of a lamp where the air is at rest. Age discards the superfluous, the immaterial, the straw and chaff, and hoards the golden grain. The highway is known, and the paths no longer mislead. Clouds are not mistaken for mountains.

*****

THE OLD MAN has been long at the fair. He is acquainted with the jugglers at the booths. His curiosity has been satisfied. He no longer cares for the exceptional, the monstrous, the marvelous and deformed. He looks through and beyond the gilding, the glitter and gloss, not only of things, but of conduct, of manners, theories, religions and philosophies. He sees clearer. The light no longer shines in his eyes.

*****

The time will come when even selfishness will be charitable for its own sake, because at that time the man will have grown and developed to that degree that selfishness demands generosity and kindness and justice. The self becomes so noble that selfishness is a virtue. The lowest form of selfishness is when one is willing to be happy, or wishes to be happy, at the expense or the misery of another. The highest form of selfishness is when a man becomes so noble that he finds his happiness in making others so. This is the nobility of selfishness.

*****

CUBA fell upon her knees--stretched her thin hands toward the great Republic. We saw her tear-filled eyes--her withered breasts--her dead babes--her dying--her buried and unburied dead. We heard her voice, and pity, roused to action by her grief, became as stern as justice, and the great Republic cried to Spain: "Sheathe the dagger of assassination; take your bloody hand from the throat of the helpless; and take your flag from the heaven of the Western World."

*****

Perhaps I have reached the years of discretion. But it may be that discretion is the enemy of happiness. If the buds had discretion there might be no fruit. So it may be that the follies committed in the spring give autumn the harvest.--August 11,1892.

*****

Dickens wrote for homes--Thackeray for clubs. Byron did not care for the fireside--for the prattle of babes--for the smiles and tears of humble life. He was touched by grandeur rather than goodness,--loved storm and crag and the wild sea. But Burns lived in the valley, touched by the joys and griefs of lowly lives.

Imagine amethysts, rubies, diamonds, emeralds and opals mingled as liquids--then imagine these marvelous glories of light and color changed to a tone, and you have the wondrous, the incomparable voice of Scalchi.

*****

THE ORGAN.--The beginnings--the timidities--the half thoughts--blushes--suggestions--a phrase of grace and feeling--a sustained note--the wing on the wind--confidence--the flight--rising with many harmonies that unite in the voluptuous swell--in the passionate tremor--rising still higher--flooding the great dome with the soul of enraptured sound.

*****

NEW MEXICO is a most wonderful country. It is a ragged miser with billions of buried treasure. It looks as if Nature had guarded her silver and gold with enough desolation to deter all but the brave.

*****

WHY SHOULD THE INDIAN SUMMER of a life be lost--the long, serene, and tender days when earth and sky are friends? The falling leaves disclose the ripened fruit--and so the flight of youth with dreams and fancies should show the wealth of bending bough.

*****

Give milk to babes, and wine to youth. But for old age, when ghosts of more than two-score years are wandering on the traveled road, the fragrant tea, that loosens gossip's tongue, is best.--December 25,1892.

[From a letter thanking a friend for a Christmas present of
a chest of tea.]

*****

ON MEMORIAL DAY our hearts blossom in gratitude as we lovingly remember the brave men upon whose brows Death, with fleshless hands, placed the laurel wreath of fame.

*****

THE SOUL IS AN ARCHITECt--it builds a habitation for itself--and as the soul is, is the habitation. Some live in dens and caves, and some in lowly homes made rich with love, and overrun with vine and flower.

*****

SCIENCE at last holds with honest hand the scales wherein are weighed the facts and fictions of the world. She neither kneels nor prays, she stands erect and thinks. Her tongue is not a traitor to her brain. Her thought and speech agree.

*****

THE NEGRO who can pass me in the race of life will receive my admiration, and he can count on my friendship. No man ever lived who proved his superiority by trampling on the weak.

*****

RELIGION is like a palm tree--it grows at the top. The dead leaves are all orthodox, while the new ones and the buds are all heretics.

*****

MEMORY is the miser of the mind; forgetfulness the spendthrift.

*****

HOPE is the only bee that makes honey without flowers.

*****

THE FIRES OF THE NEXT WORLD sustain the same relation to churches that those in this world sustain to insurance companies.

*****

Now and then there arises a man who on peril's edge draws from the scabbard of despair the sword of victory.

*****

The falling leaf that tells of autumn's death is, in a subtler sense, a prophecy of spring.

*****

Vice lives either before Love is born, or after Love is dead.

*****

Intellectual freedom is only the right to be honest.

*****

I believe that finally man will go through the phase of religion before birth.

*****

When shrill chanticleer pierces the dull ear of morn.

*****

Orthodoxy is the refuge of mediocrity.

*****

The ocean is the womb of all that will be, the tomb of all that has been.

*****

Jealousy never knows the value of a fact.

Envy cannot reason, malice cannot prophesy.

*****

Love has a kind of second sight.

*****

I have never given to any one a sketch of my life. According to my idea a life should not be written until it has been lived.--July 1, 1888.

EFFECT OF THE WORLD'S FAIR ON THE HUMAN RACE.

THE Great Fair should be for the intellectual, mechanical, artistic, political and social advancement of the world. Nations, like small communities, are in danger of becoming provincial, and must become so, unless they exchange commodities, theories, thoughts, and ideals. Isolation is the soil of ignorance, and ignorance is the soil of egotism; and nations, like individuals who live apart, mistake provincialism for perfection, and hatred of all other nations for patriotism. With most people, strangers are not only enemies, but inferiors. They imagine that they are progressive because they know little of others, and compare their present, not with the present of other nations, but with their own past.

Few people have imagination enough to sympathize with those of a different complexion, with those professing another religion or speaking another language, or even wearing garments unlike their own. Most people regard every difference between themselves and others as an evidence of the inferiority of the others. They have not intelligence enough to put themselves in the place of another if that other happens to be outwardly unlike themselves.

Countless agencies have been at work for many years destroying the hedges of thorn that have so long divided nations, and we at last are beginning to see that other people do not differ from us, except in the same particulars that we differ from them. At last, nations are becoming acquainted with each other, and they now know that people everywhere are substantially the same. We now know that while nations differ outwardly in form and feature, somewhat in theory, philosophy and creed, still, inwardly--that is to say, so far as hopes and passions are concerned--they are much the same, having the same fears, experiencing the same joys and sorrows. So we are beginning to find that the virtues belong exclusively to no race, to no creed, and to no religion; that the humanities dwell in the hearts of men, whomever and whatever they may happen to worship. We have at last found that every creed is of necessity a provincialism, destined to be lost in the universal.

At last, Science extends an invitation to all nations, and places at their disposal its ships and its cars; and when these people meet--or rather, the representatives of these people--they will find that, in spite of the accidents of birth, they are, after all, about the same; that their sympathies, their ideas' of right and wrong, of virtue and vice, of heroism and honor, are substantially alike. They will find that in every land honesty is honored, truth respected and admired, and that generosity and charity touch all hearts.

So it is of the greatest importance that the inventions of the world should be brought beneath one roof. These inventions, in my judgment, are destined to be the liberators of mankind. They enslave forces and compel the energies of nature to work for man. These forces have no backs to feel the lash, no tears to shed, no hearts to break.

The history of the world demonstrates that man becomes What we call civilized by increasing his wants. As his necessities increase, he becomes industrious and energetic. If his heart does not keep pace with his brain, he is cruel, and the physically or mentally strong enslave the physically or mentally weak. At present these inventions, while they have greatly increased the countless articles needed by man, have to a certain extent enslaved mankind. In a savage state there are few failures. Almost any one succeeds in hunting and fishing. The wants are few, and easily supplied. As man becomes civilized, wants increase; or rather as wants increase, man becomes civilized. Then the struggle for existence becomes complex; failures increase.

The first result of the invention of machinery has been to increase the wealth of the few. The hope of the world is that through invention man can finally take such advantage of these forces of nature, of the weight of water, of the force of wind, of steam, of electricity, that they will do the work of the world; and it is the hope of the really civilized that these inventions will finally cease to be the property of the few, to the end that they may do the work of all for all.

When those who do the work own the machines, when those who toil control the invention, then, and not till then, can the world be civilized or free. When these forces shall do the bidding of the individual, when they become the property of the mechanic instead of the monopoly, when they belong to labor instead of what is called capital, when these great powers are as free to the individual laborer as the air and light are now free to all, then, and not until then, the individual will be restored and all forms of slavery will disappear.

Another great benefit will come from the Fair. Other nations in some directions are more artistic than we, but no other nation has made the common as beautiful as we have. We have given beauty of form to machines, to common utensils, to the things of every day, and have thus laid the foundation for producing the artistic in its highest possible forms. It will be of great benefit to us to look upon the paintings and marbles of the Old World. To see them is an education.

The great Republic has lived a greater poem than the brain and heart of man have as yet produced, and we have supplied material for artists and poets yet unborn; material for form and color and song. The Republic is to-day Art's greatest market.

Nothing else is so well calculated to make friends of all nations as really to become acquainted with the best that each has produced.

The nation that has produced a great poet, a great artist, a great statesman, a great thinker, takes its place on an equality with other nations of the world, and transfers to all of its citizens some of the genius of its most illustrious men.

This great Fair will be an object lesson to other nations. They will see the result of a government, republican in form, where the people are the source of authority, where governors and presidents are servants--not rulers. We want all nations to see the great Republic as it is, to study and understand its growth, development and destiny. We want them to know that here, under our flag, are sixty-five millions of people and that they are the best fed, the best clothed and the best housed in the world. We want them to know that we are solving the great social problems, and that we are going to demonstrate the right and power of man to govern himself. We want the subjects of other nations to see aland filled with citizens--not subjects; aland in which the pew is above the pulpit; where the people are superior to the state; where legislators are representatives and where authority means simply the duty to enforce the people's will.

Let us hope above all things that this Fair will bind the nations together closer and stronger; and let us hope that this will result in the settlement of all national difficulties by arbitration instead of war. In a savage state, individuals settle their own difficulties by an appeal to force. After a time these individuals agree that their difficulties shall be settled by others. This is the first great step toward civilization. The result is the establishment of courts. Nations at present sustain to each other the same relation that savage does to savage. Each nation is left to decide for itself, and it generally decides according to its strength--not the strength of its side of the case, but the strength of its army. The consequence is that what is called "the Law of Nations" is a savage code. The world will never be civilized until there is an international court. Savages begin to be civilized when they submit their difficulties to their peers. Nations will become civilized when they submit their difficulties to a great court, the judgments of which can be carried out, all nations pledging the co-operation of their armies and their navies for that purpose.

If the holding of the great Fair shall result in hastening the coming of that time it will be a blessing to the whole world.

And here let me prophesy: The Fair will be worthy of Chicago, the most wonderful city of the world--of Illinois, the best State in the Union--of the United States, the best country on the earth. It will eclipse all predecessors in every department. It will represent the progressive spirit of the nineteenth century. Beneath its ample roofs will be gathered the treasures of Art, and the accomplishments of Science. At the feet of the Republic will be laid the triumphs of our race, the best of every land.--The illustrated World's Fair, Chicago, November, 1891.

SABBATH SUPERSTITION.

THE idea that one day in the week is better than the others and should be set apart for religious purposes; that it should be considered holy; that no useful work should be done on that day; that it should be given over to pious idleness and sad ceremonies connected with the worship of a supposed Being, seems to have been originated by the Jews.

According to the Old Testament, the Sabbath was marvelously sacred for two reasons; the first being, that Jehovah created the universe in six days and rested on the seventh: and the second, because the Jews had been delivered from the Egyptians.

The first of these reasons we now know to be false; and the second has nothing, so far as we are concerned, to do with the question.

There is no reason for our keeping the seventh day because the Hebrews were delivered from the Egyptians.

The Sabbath was a Jewish institution, and, according to the Bible, only the Jews were commanded to keep that day. Jehovah said nothing to the Egyptians on that subject; nothing to the Philistines, nothing to the Gentiles.

The Jews kept that day with infinite strictness, and with them this space of time known as the Sabbath became so holy that he who violated it by working was put to death. Sabbath-breaking and murder were equal crimes. On the Sabbath the pious Jew would not build a fire in his house. He ate cold victuals and thanked God. The gates of the city were closed. No business was done, and the traveler who arrived at the city on that day remained outside until evening. If he happened to fall, he remained where he fell until the sun had gone done.

The early Christians did not hold the seventh day in such veneration. As a matter of fact, they ceased to regard it as holy, and changed the sacred day from the seventh to the first. This change was really made by Constantine, because the first day of the week was the Sunday of the Pagans; and this day had been given to pleasure and recreation and to religious ceremonies for many centuries.

After Constantine designated the first day to be kept and observed by Christians, our Sunday became the sacred time.

The early Christians, however, kept the day much as it had been kept by the Pagans. They attended church in the morning, and in the afternoon enjoyed themselves as best they could..

The Catholic Church fell in with the prevailing customs, and to accommodate itself to Pagan ways and superstitions, it agreed, as far as it could, with the ideas of the Pagan.

Up to the time of the Reformation, Sunday had been divided between the discharge of religious duties and recreation.

Luther did not believe in the sacredness of the Sabbath. After church he enjoyed himself by playing games, and wanted others to do the same.

Even John Calvin, whose view had been blurred by the "Five Points," allowed the people to enjoy themselves on Sunday afternoon.

The reformers on the continent never had the Jewish idea of the sacredness of the Sabbath.

In Geneva, Germany and France, all kinds of innocent amusement were allowed on that day; and I believe the same was true of Holland.

But in Scotland the Jewish idea was adopted to the fullest extent. There Sabbath-breaking was one of the blackest and one of the most terrible crimes. Nothing was considered quite as sacred as the Sabbath.

The Scotch went so far as to take the ground that it was wrong to save people who were drowning on Sunday, the drowning being a punishment inflicted by God. Upon the question of keeping the Sabbath most of the Scottish people became insane.

The same notions about the holy day were adopted by the Dissenters in England, and it became the principal tenet in their creed.

The Puritans and Pilgrims were substantially crazy about the sacredness of Sunday. With them the first day of the week was set apart for preaching, praying, attending church, reading the Bible and studying the catechism. Walking, riding, playing on musical instruments, boating, swimming and courting, were all crimes.

No one had the right to be happy on that blessed day. It was a time of gloom, sacred, solemn and religiously stupid.

They did their best to strip their religion of every redeeming feature. They hated art and music--everything calculated to produce joy. They despised everything except the Bible, the church, God, Sunday and the creed.

The influence of these people has been felt in every part of our country. The Sabbath superstition became almost universal. No laughter, no smiles on that day; no games, no recreation, no riding, no walking through the perfumed fields or by the winding streams or the shore of the sea. No communion with the subtile beauties of nature; no wandering in the woods with wife and children, no reading of poetry and fiction; nothing but solemnity and gloom, listening to sermons, thinking about sin, death, graves, coffins, shrouds, epitaphs and ceremonies and the marvelous truths of sectarian religion, and the weaknesses of those who were natural enough and sensible enough to enjoy themselves on the Sabbath day.

So universal became the Sabbath superstition that the Legislatures of all the States, or nearly all, passed laws to prevent work and enjoyment on that day, and declared all contracts void relating to business entered into on Sunday.

The Germans gave us the first valuable lesson on this subject. They came to this country in great numbers; they did not keep the American Sabbath. They listened to music and they drank beer on that holy day. They took their wives and children with them and enjoyed themselves; yet they were good, kind, industrious people. They paid their debts and their credit was the best.

Our people saw that men could be good and women virtuous without "keeping" the Sabbath.

This did us great good, and changed the opinions of hundreds of thousands of Americans.

But the churches insisted on the old way. Gradually our people began to appreciate the fact that one-seventh of the time was being stolen by superstition. They began to ask for the opening of libraries, for music in the parks and to be allowed to visit museums and public places on the Sabbath.

In several States these demands were granted, and the privileges have never been abused. The people were orderly, polite to officials and to each other.

In 1876, when the Centennial was held at Philadelphia, the Sabbatarians had control. Philadelphia was a Sunday city, and so the gates of the Centennial were closed on that day.

This was in Philadelphia where the Sabbath superstition had been so virulent that chains had been put across the streets to prevent stages and carriages from passing at that holy time.

At that time millions of Americans felt that a great wrong was done by closing the Centennial to the laboring people; but the managers--most of them being politicians--took care of themselves and kept the gates closed.

In 1876 the Sabbatarians triumphed, and when it was determined to hold a world's fair at Chicago they made up their minds that no one should look upon the world's wonders on the Sabbath day.

To accomplish this pious and foolish purpose committees were appointed all over the country; money was raised to make a campaign; persons were employed to go about and arouse the enthusiasm of religious people; petitions by the thousand were sent to Congress and to the officers of the World's Fair, signed by thousands of people who never saw them; resolutions were passed in favor of Sunday closing by conventions, presbyteries, councils and associations. Lobbyists were employed to influence members of Congress. Great bodies of Christians threatened to boycott the fair and yet the World's Fair is open on Sunday.

What is the meaning of this? Let me tell you. It means that in this country the Scotch New England Sabbath has ceased to be; it means that it is dead. The last great effort for its salvation has been put forth, and has failed. It belonged to the creed of Jonathan Edwards and the belief of the witch-burners, and in this age it is out of place.

There was a time when the minister and priest were regarded as the foundation of wisdom; when information came from the altar, from the pulpit; and when the sheep were the property of the shepherd.

That day in intelligent communities has passed. We no longer go to the minister or the church for information. The orthodox minister is losing his power, and the Sabbath is now regarded as a day of rest, of recreation and of pleasure.

The church must keep up with the people. The minister must take another step. The multitude care but little about controversies in churches, but they do care about the practical questions that directly affect their daily lives.

Must we waste one day in seven; must we make ourselves unhappy or melancholy one-seventh of the time?

These are important questions and for many years the church in our country has answered them both in the affirmative, and a vast number of people not Christians have also said "yes" because they wanted votes, or because they feared to incite the hatred of the church.

Now in this year of 1893 a World's Fair answered this question in the negative, and a large majority of the citizens of the Republic say that the officers of the Fair have done right.

This marks an epoch in the history of the Sabbath. It is to be sacred in a religious sense in this country no longer. Henceforth in the United States the Sabbath is for the use of man.

Many of those who labored for the closing of the Fair on Sunday took the ground that if the gates were opened, God would visit this nation with famine, flood and fire.

It hardly seems possible that God will destroy thousands of women and children who had nothing to do with the opening of the Fair; still, if he is the same God described in the Christian Bible, he may destroy our babes as he did those of the Egyptians. It is a little hard to tell in advance what a God of that kind will do.

It was believed for many centuries that God punished the Sabbath-breaking individual and the Sabbath-breaking nation. Of course facts never had anything to do with this belief, and the prophecies of the pulpit were never fulfilled. People who were drowned on Sunday, according to the church, lost their lives by the will of God. Those drowned on other days were the victims of storm or accident. The nations that kept the Sabbath were no more prosperous than those that broke the sacred day. Certainly France is as prosperous as Scotland.

Let us hope, however, that these zealous gentlemen who have predicted calamities were mistaken; let us be glad that hundreds of thousands of workingmen and women will be delighted and refined by looking at the statues, the paintings, the machinery, and the countless articles of use and beauty gathered together at the great Fair, and let us be glad that on the one day that they can spare from toil, the gates will be open to them.

A TRIBUTE TO GEORGE JACOB HOLYOAKE.

TWO articles have recently appeared attacking the motives of George Jacob Holyoake. He is spoken of as a man governed by a desire to please the rich and powerful, as one afraid of public opinion and who in the perilous hour denies or conceals his convictions.

In these attacks there is not one word of truth. They are based upon mistakes and misconceptions.

There is not in this world a nobler, braver man. In England he has done more for the great cause of intellectual liberty than any other man of this generation. He has done more for the poor, for the children of toil, for the homeless and wretched than any other living man. He has attacked all abuses, all tyranny and all forms of hypocrisy. His weapons have been reason, logic, facts, kindness, and above all, example. He has lived his creed. He has won the admiration and respect of his bitterest antagonists. He has the simplicity of childhood, the enthusiasm of youth and the wisdom of age. He is not abusive, but he is clear and conclusive.. He is intense without violence--firm without anger. He has the strength of perfect kindness. He does not hate--he pities. He does not attack men and women, but dogmas and creeds. And he does not attack them to get the better of people, but to enable people to get the better of them. He gives the light he has. He shares his intellectual wealth with the orthodox poor. He assists without insulting, guides without arrogance, and enlightens without outrage. Besides, he is eminent for the exercise of plain common sense. He knows that there are wrongs besides those born of superstition--that people are not necessarily happy because they have renounced the Thirty-nine Articles--and that the priest is not the only enemy of mankind. He has for forty years been preaching and practicing industry, economy, self-reliance, and kindness. He has done all within his power to give the workingman a better home, better food, better wages, and better opportunities for the education of his children. He has demonstrated the success of co-operation--of intelligent combination for the common good. As a rule, his methods have been perfectly legal. In some instances he has knowingly violated the law, and did so with the intention to take the consequences. He would neither ask nor accept a pardon, because to receive a pardon carries with it the implied promise to keep the law, and an admission that you were in the wrong. He would not agree to desist from doing what he believed ought to be done, neither would he stain his past to brighten his future, nor imprison his soul to free his body. He has that happy mingling of gentleness and firmness found only in the highest type of moral heroes. He is an absolutely just man, and will never do an act that he would condemn in another. He admits that the most bigoted churchman has a perfect right to express his opinions not only, but that he must be met with argument couched in kind and candid terms. Mr. Holyoake is not only the enemy of a theological hierarchy, but he is also opposed to mental mobs. He will not use the bludgeon of epithet.

Perfect fairness is regarded by many as weakness. Some people have altogether more confidence in their beliefs than in their own arguments. They resort to assertion. If what they assert be denied, the "debate" becomes a question of veracity. On both sides of most questions there are plenty of persons who imagine that logic dwells only in adjectives, and that to speak kindly of an opponent is a virtual surrender.

Mr. Holyoake attacks the church because it has been, is, and ever will be the enemy of mental freedom, but he does not wish to deprive the church even of its freedom to express its opinion against freedom. He is true to his own creed, knowing that when we have freedom we can take care of all its enemies.

In one of the articles to which I have referred it is charged that Mr. Holyoake refused to sign a petition for the pardon of persons convicted of blasphemy. If this is true, he undoubtedly had a reason satisfactory to himself. You will find that his action, or his refusal to act, rests upon a principle that he would not violate in his own behalf.

Why should we suspect the motives of this man who has given his life for the good of others? I know of no one who is his mental or moral superior. He is the most disinterested of men. His name is a synonym of candor. He is a natural logician--an intellectual marksman. Like an unerring arrow his thought flies to the heart and center. He is governed by principle, and makes no exception in his own favor. He is intellectually honest. He shows you the cracks and flaws in his own wares. He calls attention to the open joints and to the weakest links. He does not want a victory for himself, but for truth. He wishes to expose and oppose, not men, but error. He is blessed with that cloudless mental vision that appearances cannot deceive, that interest cannot darken, and that even ingratitude cannot blur. Friends cannot induce and enemies cannot drive this man to do an act that his heart and brain would not applaud. That such a character was formed without the aid of the church, without the hope of harp or fear of flame, is a demonstration against the necessity of superstition.

Whoever is opposed to mental bondage, to the shackles wrought by cruelty and worn by fear, should be the friend of this heroic and unselfish man.

I know something of his life--something of what he has suffered--of what he has accomplished for his fellow-men. He has been maligned, imprisoned and impoverished. "He bore the heat and burden of the unregarded day" and "remembered the misery of the many." For years his only recompense was ingratitude. At last he was understood. He was recognized as an earnest, honest, gifted, generous, sterling man, loving his country, sympathizing with the poor, honoring the useful, and holding in supreme abhorrence tyranny and falsehood in all their forms. The idea that this man could for a moment be controlled by any selfish motive, by the hope of preferment, by the fear of losing a supposed annuity, is simply absurd. The authors of these attacks are not acquainted with Mr. Holyoake. Whoever dislikes him does not know him.

Read his "Trial of Theism"--his history of "Co-operation in England"--if you wish to know his heart--to discover the motives of his life--the depth and tenderness of his sympathy--the nobleness of his nature--the subtlety of his thought--the beauty of his spirit--the force and volume of his brain--the extent of his information--his candor, his kindness, his genius, and the perfect integrity of his stainless soul.

There is no man for whom I have greater respect, greater reverence, greater love, than George Jacob Holyoake.--

August 8, 1883.

AT THE GRAVE OF BENJAMIN W. PARKER.

* This was the first tribute ever delivered by Colonel
Ingersoll at a grave. Mr. Parker himself was an Agnostic,
was the father of Mrs. Ingersoll, and was always a devoted
friend and admirer of the Colonel even before the latter's
marriage with his daughter.

Peoria, Ill., May 24, 1876.

FRIENDS AND NEIGHBORS: To fulfill a promise made many years ago, I wish to say a word.

He whom we are about to lay in the earth, was gentle, kind and loving in his life. He was ambitious only to live with those he loved. He was hospitable, generous, and sincere. He loved his friends, and the friends of his friends. He returned good for good. He lived the life of a child, and died without leaving in the memory of his family the record of an unkind act. Without assurance, and without fear, we give him back to Nature, the source and mother of us all.

With morn, with noon, with night; with changing clouds and changeless stars; with grass and trees and birds, with leaf and bud, with flower and blossoming vine,--with all the sweet influences of nature, we leave our dead.

Husband, father, friend, farewell.

A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL

Washington, D. C., May 31, 1879.

* The funeral of the Hon. E. C. Ingersoll took place
yesterday afternoon at four o'clock, from his late
residence, 1403 K Street The only ceremony at the house,
other than the viewing of the remains, was a most affecting
pathetic, and touching address by Col. Robert G. ingersoll,
brother of the deceased. Not only the speaker, but every one
of his hearers were deeply affected. When he began to read
his eloquent characterization of the dead man his eyes at
once filled with tears. He tried to hide them, but he could
not do it, and finally he bowed his head upon the dead man's
coffin in uncontrollable grief It was only after some delay,
and the greatest efforts a self-mastery, that Colonel
Ingersoll was able to finish reading his address. When he
had ceased speaking, the members of the bereaved family
approached the casket and looked upon the form which it
contained, for the last time. The scene was heartrending.
The devotion of all connected with the household excited
the sympathy of all and there was not a dry eye to be seen.
The pall-bearers--Senator William B. Allison, Senator James
G. Blaine, Senator David Davis, Senator Daniel W Voorhees.
Representative James A. Garfield, Senator A. S Paddock,
Representative Thomas Q. Boyd of Illinois, the Hon. Ward H.
Lermon, ex-Congressman Jere Wilson, and Representative Adlai
E. Stevenson of Illinois--then bore the remains to the
hearse, and the lengthy cortege proceeded to the Oak Hill
Cemetery, where the remains were interred, in the presence
of the family and friends, without further ceremony.--
National Republican, Washington, D. C., June 3, 1879.

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

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

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

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

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

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

He was a worshiper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have heard him quote these words: "_For Justice all place a temple, and all season, summer_." He believed that happiness is the only good, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only religion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy; and were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom to his grave, he would sleep tonight beneath a wilderness of flowers.

Life is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of death hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.

He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the return of health, whispered with his latest breath, "I am better now." Let us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that these dear words are true of all the countless dead.

The record of a generous life runs like a vine around the memory of our dead, and every sweet, unselfish act is now a perfumed flower.

And now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved, to do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.

Speech cannot contain our love. There was, there is, no gentler, stronger, manlier man.

A TRIBUTE TO THE REV. ALEXANDER CLARK.

Washington, D. C. July 13, 1879.

UPON the grave of the Reverend Alexander Clark I wish to place one flower. Utterly destitute of cold, dogmatic pride, that often passes for the love of God; without the arrogance of the "elect;" simple, free, and kind--this earnest man made me his friend by being mine. I forgot that he was a Christian, and he seemed to forget that I was not, while each remembered that the other was at least a man.

Frank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked with the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. He believed in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the hideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure.

Giving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never occurred to him that his God hated a brave and honest unbeliever. He remembered that even an Infidel had rights that love respects; that hatred has no saving power, and that in order to be a Christian it is not necessary to become less than a human being. He knew that no one can be maligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are not arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points toward heaven. With the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest liberty of thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a chain is but a curse.

For this man I felt the greatest possible regard. In spite of the taunts and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would treat Infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to convince them by argument and win them with love. He insisted that the God he worshiped loved the well-being even of an Atheist. In this grand position he stood almost alone. Tender, just, and loving where others were harsh, vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the admiration of every honest man. A few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and render the pulpit worthy of esteem.

The heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can never be excelled. He admitted that I had not lost, and could not lose, a single right by the expression of my honest thought. Neither did he believe that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by persecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive.

While this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having treated me with fairness. But, I trust, now that he has left the shore touched by the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the image of a homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who still remain to preach the love of God.

His sympathies were not confined within the prison, of a creed, but ran out and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted bars with leaf and flower. He could not echo with his heart the fiendish sentence of eternal fire. In spite of book and creed, he read "between the lines" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the world.. Above, beyond, the dogmas of his church--humane even to the verge of heresy--causing some to doubt his love of God because he failed to hate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind and to his work gave up his life with all his heart.

AT A CHILD'S GRAVE.

Washington, D. C., January 8, 1882.

MY FRIENDS: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.

Why should we fear that which will come to all that is? We cannot tell, we do not know, which is the greater blessing--life or death. We cannot say that death is not a good. We do not know whether the grave is the end of this life, or the door of another, or whether the night here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we tell which is the more fortunate--the child dying in its mother's arms, before its lips have learned to form a word, or he who journeys all the length of life's uneven road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and crutch.

Every cradle asks us "Whence?" and every coffin "Whither?" The poor barbarian, weeping above his dead, can answer these questions just as well as the robed priest of the most authentic creed. The tearful ignorance of the one, is as consoling as the learned and unmeaning words of the other. No man, standing where the horizon of a life has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future filled with pain and tears.

May be that death gives all there is of worth to life. If those we press and strain within our arms could never die, perhaps that love would wither from the earth. May be this common fate treads from out the paths between our hearts the weeds of selfishness and hate. And I had rather live and love where death is king, than have eternal life where love is not. Another life is nought, unless we know and love again the ones who love us here.

They who stand with breaking hearts around this little grave, need have no fear. The larger and the nobler faith in all that is, and is to be, tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We know that through the common wants of life--the needs and duties of each hour--their grief will lessen day by day, until at last this grave will be to them a place of rest and peace--almost of joy. There is for them this consolation: The dead do not suffer. If they live again, their lives will surely be as good as ours. We have no fear. We are all children of the same mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too, have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living--Hope for the dead.

A TRIBUTE TO JOHN G. MILLS.

Washington, D. C., April 15, 1883.

MY FRIENDS: Again we are face to face with the great mystery that shrouds this world. We question, but there is no reply. Out on the wide waste seas, there drifts no spar. Over the desert of death the sphinx gazes forever, but never speaks.

In the very May of life another heart has ceased to beat. Night has fallen upon noon. But he lived, he loved, he was loved. Wife and children pressed their kisses on his lips. This is enough. The longest life contains no more. This fills the vase of joy.

He who lies here, clothed with the perfect peace of death, was a kind and loving husband, a good father, a generous neighbor, an honest man,--and these words build a monument of glory above the humblest grave. He was always a child, sincere and frank, as full of hope as Spring. He divided all time into to-day and to-morrow. To-morrow was without a cloud, and of to-morrow he borrowed sunshine for to-day. He was my friend. He will remain so. The living oft become estranged; the dead are true. He was not a Christian. In the Eden of his hope there did not crawl and coil the serpent of eternal pain. In many languages he sought the thoughts of men, and for himself he solved the problems of the world. He accepted the philosophy of Auguste Comte. Humanity was his God; the human race was his Supreme Being. In that Supreme Being he put his trust. He believed that we are indebted for what we enjoy to the labor, the self-denial, the heroism of the human race, and that as we have plucked the fruit of what others planted, we in thankfulness should plant for others yet to be.

With him immortality was the eternal consequences of his own acts. He believed that every pure thought, every disinterested deed, hastens the harvest of universal good. This is a religion that enriches poverty; that enables us to bear the sorrows of the saddest life; that peoples even solitude with the happy millions yet to live,--a religion born not of selfishness and fear, but of love, of gratitude, and hope,--a religion that digs wells to slake the thirst of others, and gladly bears the burdens of the unborn.

But in the presence of death, how beliefs and dogmas wither and decay! How loving words and deeds burst into blossom! Pluck from the tree of any life these flowers, and there remain but the barren thorns of bigotry and creed.

All wish for happiness beyond this life. All hope to meet again the loved and lost. In every heart there grows this sacred flower. Immortality is a word that Hope through all the ages has been whispering to Love. The miracle of thought we cannot understand. The mystery of life and death we cannot comprehend. This chaos called the world has never been explained. The golden bridge of life from gloom emerges, and on shadow rests. Beyond this we do not know. Fate is speechless, destiny is dumb, and the secret of the future has never yet been told. We love; we wait; we hope. The more we love, the more we fear. Upon the tenderest heart the deepest shadows fall. All paths, whether filled with thorns or flowers, end here. Here success and failure are the same. The rag of Wretchedness and the purple robe of power all difference and distinction lose in this democracy of death. Character survives; goodness lives; love is immortal.

And yet to all a time may come when the fevered lips of life will long for the cool, delicious kiss of death--when tired of the dust and glare of day we all shall hear with joy the rustling garments of the night.

What can we say of death? What can we say of the dead? Where they have gone, reason cannot go, and from thence revelation has not come. But let us believe that over the cradle Nature bends and smiles, and lovingly above the dead in benediction holds her outstretched hands.

A TRIBUTE TO ELIZUR WRIGHT.

New York. December 19, 1885.

ANOTHER hero has fallen asleep--one who enriched the world with an honest life.

Elizur Wright was one of the Titans who attacked the monsters, the Gods, of his time--one of the few whose confidence in liberty was never shaken, and who, with undimmed eyes, saw the atrocities and barbarisms of his day and the glories of the future.

When New York was degraded enough to mob Arthur Tappan, the noblest of her citizens; when Boston was sufficiently infamous to howl and hoot at Harriet Martineau, the grandest Englishwoman that ever touched our soil; when the North was dominated by theology and trade, by piety and piracy; when we received our morals from merchants, and made merchandise of our morals, Elizur Wright held principle above profit, and preserved his manhood at the peril of his life.

When the rich, the cultured, and the respectable,--when church members and ministers, who had been "called" to preach the "glad tidings," and when statesmen like Webster joined with bloodhounds, and in the name of God hunted men and mothers, this man rescued the fugitives and gave asylum to the oppressed.

During those infamous years--years of cruelty and national degradation--years of hypocrisy and greed and meanness beneath the reach of any English word, Elizur Wright became acquainted with the orthodox church. He found that a majority of Christians were willing to enslave men and women for whom they said that Christ had died--that they would steal the babe of a Christian mother, although they believed that the mother would be their equal in heaven forever. He found that those who loved their enemies would enslave their friends--that people who when smitten on one cheek turned the other, were ready, willing and anxious to mob and murder those who simply said: "The laborer is worthy of his hire."

In those days the church was in favor of slavery, not only of the body but of the mind. According to the creeds, God himself was an infinite master and all his children serfs. He ruled with whip and chain, with pestilence and fire. Devils were his bloodhounds, and hell his place of eternal torture.

Elizur Wright said to himself, why should we take chains from bodies and enslave minds--why fight to free the cage and leave the bird a prisoner? He became an enemy of orthodox religion--that is to say, a friend of intellectual liberty.

He lived to see the destruction of legalized larceny; to read the Proclamation of Emancipation; to see a country without a slave, a flag without a stain. He lived long enough to reap the reward for having been an honest man; long enough for his "disgrace" to become a crown of glory; long enough to see his views adopted and his course applauded by the civilized world; long enough for the hated word "abolitionist" to become a title of nobility, a certificate of manhood, courage and true patriotism.