The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1878-03-07

course, very eloquent and witty, studded wit
| epgrams, and Astounding inpassages of lof
| and passionate defamation. Its purport W;
plea for freedom of thought and liberty {
expression 1t was in fact an application
the phrase attributed to Gov. Andrew of Mas
achusetts: 81 don't want that anyone shou
try to ram his catechism down my throat, an
1 don't propose to try to ram mine down an.
body's throat Batting Col. Ingersoll's flip
pancy in treating of religious topics and th
sometimes offensive expression of his theolog
cal vagaries, the lecture had nothing in it I
wound the susceptiblities Of the most devou
Of course the lecturer had as much right Il
make an ass Of himself as did the Argus CO..
respondent who called the other day for the Ell
forcement of the forgotten statute agaius
blasphemy. That correspondent was allude
to, by the way, in fine contemptuous name
that would have convinced him, could he hav
heard it, that he is the meanest man in Maine
The lecturer began with the proposition tina
liberty is the child Of intelligence; that just t
the extent a man is intelligent he is liberia
and just to the extent he is bigoted b
lacks brains. The more that man knows, tn
more he knows that that he is not absolutel
certain about anything; and the less mai
knows, the more willing he is to take his oath t.
| the correctness of what he does know. The mai
who is not willing to give to every other humal
be ing every right he claims for himself, is no
an honest man. If We are any nearer free thar
| were our fathers, it is because we have better
heads and more in them-because on the aver
| age there is more intellect in the world. To il
| lustrate this matter of intellectual develop
ment, he compared the implements of offence
and defence, and of agricultural and musical
instruments. and other things used by man fol
his comfort and protection, of ages ago and to-
day, and he said there had been gradual i'm.
provement. He then compared row of skulls
from Central Africa. from the bushmen Of
Australia, from the aborigines of this country,
and from the isles of the sea, with the best
skulls Of the last generation and discovered the
same difference between these skulls as be-
tween the products of these skulls,
and he said to himself that, after all,
this was question of intellectual develop
ment, not of law nor of government, nor of
religion, but of how much man would mingle
his thought with his labor. The skull of our
gentleman ancestor in his dugout, with teeth
two inches long, and forehead half as long
as his teeth, was low den, in which crept and
crawled the baser and meaner instincts, and
that of the later development was a temple in
which dwelt love, liberty and joy. Our ancesz
tor in the dugout had his idea of religion.
That skull was devil factory. That gentle
man believed in hell, and he was glad of it.
On the lurid waves OF the eternal wrath of
God he saw the faces and legs and arms of in
fants, and he was glad OF it. That gentleman
believed in devil; he had no doubt of it. He
was like that lady who said there must be
devil, else how could they make pictures that
looked exactly like him. That gentleman be-
lieved 10 devil that had long tail, adorned
with fiery dart. who had the pleasant habit
of breathing sulphur, who had wings like
bat, who had cloven foot,-such as many Of
the clergy imagine have, even now. And al
low me to saysthere has meyer been q made
patentable improvement on the devil for 5000
years. All ask is the same right to improve
upon his religion as upon his politics, his agri-
cultural implements. his painting and his stat
uary. That is all. Let us have absolute intel
lectual liberty. On the intellectual sea there is
room for every sail. Let us have intellectual
freedom in every direction, and let every man
have right to express his honest thought
Suppose it had been said in regard to the an,
farmer in pious DREAM" and no improve
ment had been allowed, what would have been
the effect on the science of agriculture? What
it. it had been said that an angel, sitting on a
cloud playing on tom-tom, became so en-
tranced with her music that in her ecstacy she
dropped it, and that it would be sacrilege,
TO have any other musical instru-
ment? Again the speaker asserted that all he
asked was right to improve upon religion as
upon music or agricultural implements.
Mr.. Ingersoll, after speaking concerning the
change in popular opinion concerning hell,
spoke of the intolerance of Christians in times
past toward heretics, describing fortunes of the
which were inflicted in the name
Of universal love, and under which nearly
everybody recanted. I don't blame them, said
he; think should have recanted myself.
should have said TO them, such speopie are not
worth dying for; they are not worth drop of
1ecent blood; and any man who ever persecut-
I'd another on account of his religion never was
worth drop of honest blood. 1 think should
sign it. Have one Goa or million, one heII or
\ billion" But as the thumb-screw bias gone
put of use, have made up my mind to have
my say. But therelwas now and then man who
would not turn Judas Iscarot to his soul; who
said, IL will stand by my convictions" And
had it not been for some such great, sublime
soul in every age we would be naked savages
tonight, with pictures OF animals tattood on
our backs, dancing fetish around q fire
tonishment that people had the impudence to
write a creed for other people, claiming they
alone had a right to do it. In the presence of
the Unknown every American citizen, he said,
had an equal right to guess and tell what his
guess was. He spoke with pleasure of the
of brain and heart. We we're judgiBg men of
wealth, not by the money they had so much as
by what they did with it. It is not question
now of who my father was, but it is question
OF who his son is.
Mr.. Ingersoll came now to a consideration of
the subject of marriage, and introduced it by
saying that the meaner a man is the more apt
he is to think he is better than any woman who
ever lived. He believed in m arIiage, he said,
and the family relation, but not in marriage
where the man was tyrant and the woman
slave. The highest ambition that shy young
man could have was to so live that he could be
worthy the love of some magnificent woman,
and the best ambition young woman could
have, was to make herself worthy the ambition
and love of some splendid man. He believed
the family was the unit of good gov
ernment, and that there could be no good
government unless it was made up of these
units, and be had not the slightest respect for
those men and women who denounced the in
sttuton Of marriage. He then psraphrased
the Bible account OF the creation of the world
and the human race. The world and one man,
he said, we're made out of nothing, and all
nothing having been used up in this operation,
woman had to be made out of something else,
aud, taking into consideration the quality of
the raw material to work upon, he looked upon
the manufacture of woman as the most sue.
cessful job ever accomplished. He spoke of
the marriage of Adam and Eve and their going
to housekeeping. They were told, he said,
that they might eat everything except some
apples off certain tree. Well, of course that
is the tree they went for. 1 have never found
it in my heart to blame them. l would have
done it myself, I know it. 1 would have had
an apple. or that tree would have been full of
clubs within fifteen minutes. After completing
his translation of the incidents contained in
the first chapter of Genesis, he compared with
that account the Brahminical version of the
same story, which he said was written two or
three thousand years before the other, and yet
the commentators agreed that the one that was
written first was copied from the one that was
written last. If either of the two stories
turned out true he hoped it would be the latter
one, which presented the nobler man and
woman to start the race With. He admins
tered sharp rebuke to husbands who reduced
their wives to beggary, and never gave them a
dollar without asking what they had done with
the last six bits. In regard to woman suffrage,
and the suggestion that women didn't have
enough intelligence to vote, he said it didn't
take much, and he was too much of a gentle
man to say they should not. He spoke strongly
against whipping children, and urged parents,
if they wanted their children to be honest. to
he honest with them Parents sbould MT nre,