| Show TO THE REAR I 1 politics politic ls la a fickle Ackle jade jad those whom it fawned upon a short itne ago are either in obscurity ot at the rear and vide vice veria while some through its it too ras caay treatment treat meat or indefensible be rare ina different and conflicting place olace from where they have hitherto been halt a dozen men man who have held cabinet positions under republican presidents are now now active cam paig ners under unde r thy me cleveland banner while george ticknor curtla curtis and many other athor lifelong life long democrats democrat are out for Ha harrison irison and thus it coee the most cost conspicuous case of complete oc tation however is in that of colonel robert a G ingersoll Inger ingersoll soil once the idol of the republican Republic on party and a man whose flashy rhetoric and explosive vehemence were relied upon more than any othor other similar gency agency to rally the wavering and bring the doubtful into lins line his hia speech nominating james G blaine at the national republican convention at cincinnati in 1876 wax was one of those thoe diamond pointer and sententious outbursts which captivate not for the moment only but endure and are handed on and down after this he be aia on the stump continually till the he campaign closest stirring up the enthusiasm thusia sm and eliciting the encomium mind and jl of admiring throngs he was a 8 most moat conspicuous figure then more than ban the candidate he represented hia name was on every bodao alij 11 pa and aad ula his glowing words were quoted by great and small mall by the thinking and the unthinking what a difference he Is still mentioned occasionally always by the local press of the place where he be lectures or more widely when la in some noted lawsuit but no longer in words worda that glow or L in a connection itself suggestive of greatness great new Is ic is in now bob festive ingersoll og ersoll pope B bob 09 b or when the patronizing sty style or a to la not ot used it becomes colonel ersoll PP P plain ingersoll lag this i ina a falling off for bieh w there is a cause plainly apparent and it Is ia not entirely if at all political colonel ingersoll Inge noll has hac not contested contented himself with being merely an unbeliever but on OB all occasions where it could reasonably be done don has ba taken balna to exhibit this sakne weakness in his structure it has become blatant with with him and la Is resorted to simply as the drunkard resorts to the wine cup through the force of habit a habit which affords him a sort of dogged comfort but to Is nauseous to those with whom he comes in contact As our political parties are mostly made up of christians christian representing various denominations Inge ingersoll noll hai read himself out of favor with all of them and at last receives recognition from none this to is not net as stated because he is an infidel for it is in conceded that he has the privilege of his peculiar views and no one has a right to molest him it is in because human buman nature gets tired after a time of being slurred blurred and contemned contemn ed and made light of because of its inclination oil cli nation to any belief it may entertain or any reasonable practice in which it way may engage especially when there is no call for such proceeding not long since colonel ingersoll Inge noll delivered a lecture on shakespeare Shake peare 12 at helena montana for a charitable object thereby showing that he himself is charitable in one way if i ot in another his audience was of course composed of all kind of people and presumably all or nearly all were admirers of shakespeare Shake speare peare the theme was surely grand and fruitful enough for a lecture by itself but the lecturer could not or did not forego the opportunity to ridicule theology making little of those who stood in awe of an invisible monster in the clouds cloud and so on did not such behavior tend toward casting a dark shadow upon what might hive have been a bright place in his career was not what might have been a feeling of admiration because of a chari charitable tible deed well performed nearly laif if not q bite overcome by the sensation of disgust which those who entertained religious views must have experienced let him be a pagan by all means since that to is his preference but why is it the pagan cannot enjoy himself so well as when making others miserable this to is one of the rights of manil man which the eloquent illinoisan Illin and all allot of his hie kind would do well to pay more attention to than they have done clone so far colonel Inger latest lecture is on the subject of voltaire in which he be pictures that erratic philosopher as a most valiant foe to superstition the fact is if there to is any reliance to be no placed laced upon history that voltaire was like most atheists of his hie day and of since noo the degree and persistency of his hie opposition to sacred things depended entirely upon the condition of his liver when it was sound and there was nothing immediate to remind him of the nearness of eternity his hie heterodoxy amounted to blasphemy but prestol presto when be thought as he did at least once before the time came that death was near he sent in hot haste for a priest made confession and was shrivel shrived 1 be became worse than ever kicked out of the traces completely and finally died as he had lived it requires the ingenuity of an I 1 ingersol Inger soil I 1 to find even the germs germa of real in such a creature as aa voltaire Volt alre a man who feared death and what follows it as much as ae the wretch that was wag ever dragged to the scaffold and who affect ed and cultivated irreverence for we much the same cause that big b in more modern imitators do they can attract more attention that way than any other this gratifies their vanity and they permit the feeling to grow and become stronger until they think they are going to die then the utter hollowness hollow nega of all they have said and done is realized and as we firmly believe would if it could be recalled before their leap into the dark Js ie taken |
