Show 7 < 7 r J INGERSOLL OS BLASPHEMY Samples From His startling Cudjret Opened at Boston I I take the ground said Bob Ingersoll to a very large audience in the Boston theater a evenings ago that what is too sacred to be discussed is too absurd to be believed Credulity is a virtue only where investigation is a crime and in vestigation is a crime only where impos tors begin That is all I take this occa sion to again say that on the subject of theology I know nothing As to the great question of whence and where I know just as little as any cardinal or any pope who ever lived and just as much as as all of them put together Now most religionists have believed that there was something in the sky they do not know exactly where but somewhere a God who was wonderfully quicktempered flying into a passion before one had time to explain who was always watching for an opportunity to catch one of his children on the hip I really believe that all the religions in this world have been substantially H built believers by and that all who have contributed to the support of those re ligionsthat is the paying members have been substantially honest Take the idea first that there is a G 11 wim can be flattered who with a few words gan be made perfectly happy and who with one or two words can be turned into a spasm of rage Do you know that any man who depends for happiness on me is to that extent my slave and if I there is any God who depends for happiness happi-ness on man he is even beneath man There is some mistake in that logic If one be lieves in that God of course he will be icve in the crime known as blasphemy Now if there is a God who is sacred then he makes known his will to some people and of course the people he se lects are sacred You must not touch them You know how it is God selects ministers He used to do it lie does so still He surprises us sometimes with the choice he makes Colonel Ingersoll continued to discuss the origin and nature of blasphemy in a vein of broad ridicule for about two hours Here arc some of his points It is blasphemy to be manly frank brave and generous It is blasphemy in New York to say that Mohammed was a prophet and it is blasphemy to say in Constantinople that Mohammed was not a prophet There is in the Testament a sin against the Holy Ghost which will not be forgiven for-given in this world or in the world to come and they have not told us what that sin is That is kept absolutely secret cret Is there any tyranny more abso utely devilish than that hundreds and L thousands of men and women in the United States and in the world should be suffering insane asylums crazed by the idea that they have committed the unpardonable sin That is the sin against the Holy Ghost I am not fighting Presbyterians but Presbyterianism Some of the best friends I have in the world are Presbyterians I do not hate a man because he has the rheumatism I fight the diseases and not the man A Presbyterian boy may feel a divine thrill as he passes a sentence of eternal rief upon the mother who bore him That is the last Presbyterian joy I say tonight if the Presbyterian creed is true God is insane I have violated the laws of Massachu setts tonight I have violated the laws of every state in which I have spoken But those laws are wild beasts asleep The church has some influence after all I notice in the paper that Mr Ryan refused to fight Mr Sullivan during Lent What is worship J To do justice to defend end the right to be strength for the weak to be a shielder for the defenseless to keep peace between neighbor and nations to laborall these are worship Bodies are sacred not books and rituals Human happiness is sacred and whoever clouds the sunshine of a heart is a blasphemer In that vast cemetery of the past lie interred the religions of men and there too are nearly all their gods One by one the myths have faded from the clouds one by one the phantom hosts have disappeared Facts realities have takeu their places The God has fled but the man is here The religion of one age becomes the scorn of the next the gods of one period are the bywords of the following Our religion is doomed like the rest These fourjustice love charity and liberty changeless deathlessthese are the only gods In their temples I will worship at their shrine I will bow down Boston Record |