The Pulaski citizen. [volume] (Pulaski, Tenn.) 1866-current, 1879-05-22
COL. INGERSOLL.
A Graphic Pen Portrait Of the In
pious Atheistic Lecturer by
Estelle Vehse,
With a Merited and ThriIIingIRebuke.

An0Os
The subject of this sketch, now
the cynosure of the civilized world
as lecturer, who daringly handles
the Bible and its sacred contents
with ungloved and impious hands
resides in palatial home in this city
near the scene where Key fell by
the hand of Slckels.
His family consists of wife and
children, whom he folds in the wor-
ship and embrace of warm and
loving heart. He is man of strong
feeling and powerful intellect, and
has been all his life close student.
Brought up by Presbyterian parents
his father being a minister-and
subjected to a rigid and puritanical
training, has had much to do with
his present status. In memory of
this and the almost unbearable
trials he was forced to undergo in
his boyhood, especially on the Sab
bath, he told the writer of this arti-
Gle he kept all books out of his
children's way that contained the
name Of God or Christ, or was cal
culated to bias the youthful mind
any way in regard to what was
termed Christian teaching.
Col. Ingersoll is a large, fine fig
ure (perhaps a little too ena6onpoint
for comeliness) }, the rise of six feet,
and about forty years of age; fair,
clear complexion, such as a woman
would envy; light, thin hair mixed
with gray; expressive nose and
mouth and dimpled chin, clean,
smooth face; bright, sparkling, pen
etrating, grayish blue eyes, that
look straight at you, expressive of
contentment and of superiority,
yet in sympathy with the smallest
suffering; firm and unfiinching mot
intrusive in his views and senti-
ments, and inspired with the love
of uature, the love of liberty and
the love of nobleness; a fine conver-
sationalist, cheerful, social, win
ming, dignified in his bearing and
faultless in his dress Such is Col.
at his own freside.
On the rostrum he is command
ing, his Oratorical powers potent
and peculiar, his reasoning inge-
NOUS. his facial expressions Won
1erful, and his witticisms, when
confined to mundane things, bril-
liant and inimitable. With bursts
0f electric eloquence he enchains
and thrills his hearers as they fol-
Ow him in his eagle flight through
line and space; from the wild, un
savage, with his beads and
Gathers, padding his dug-out Hn4n
,f-war with it's miles of canvass
spread to the breeze, its bulwarks
with cannon, moving in its
night and in its grandeur upon the
broad illimitable expanse of ocean
From the rude, uncouth stone i'm
lge with its two heads, its many
arms and many legs, to the proud
statue in its seemingly living beau
~ that to touch would be impious.
Launching his startling chain
lightning, his thunderbolts and his
witty denunciations against the
Great Ruler and Maker of call
,hings that move and have their
being" until the flesh creeps with
1 shudder, the pulses are stilled
md the breath hushed with awe,
save those in sympathy with his
opinions, from which wild ringing
aughter and rapturous applause
greet him, filling the building with
from base to apex.
Such is the atheist, Col. Ingersoll,
upon the rostrum, debasing his fine
God given attributes in declaring
TO the world the startling words,
there is no Cod"
o, sun! Thou grand controlling
center of the universe, cheering,
Iife-giving, glorifying all nature,
animate and inanimate, and around
which all lesser lights revolve, Dor
rowing all their effulgence, answer,
is there no God?
o, earth! bearing upon your
mother bosom foliage, blossom and
fruit with their emerald, gold and
flame tints, and sweet perfumes
coming and going like the strains
Of soft music borne upon the balmy
breath of morn, scintillating in her
jeweled array, is there no God?
o. glowing planets! swaying be-
meath the blue-arched and over
sky in your splendid maj
esty, "beacons on the boundless
shores of night" a0hO holds you to
your proud course, if there is no
God?
o, moonlight and starlight, in
your calm beauty, flooding the
graves of our loved ones in robes
of silvery brightness! is there no
God?
o, rainbow! spanning the dark
storm cloud in thy marvellous
beauty, whose brush, dipped in gor-
geous tints, dashed thee athwart
the gloom as a promise to future
ages, is there no God?
And we, snow capped mountains,
far away, with your SUBMITS tower
ing above the clouds into the pur
pied distance and your base washed
by the rushing torrent or resting in
luxuriant freshness; and you, old
ocean, rolling in your grandeur,
your dark fathomless waters
stretching away with ceaseless moan
"From Greeuland's icy mountains
To Irdia's coral strand"
since "the stars sang together r'were
you not fashioned by a Divine
hand?
Whence, o, whence, sprang the
mighty piece of architecture, man,
with love, joy, woe insatiate, hun
gering, thirsting, craving for a higher
and better life in the eternal be
yond if there is no God?
O, mortal existence! a blank in
the future? o, glooml o, woe!
Burdened, dying, and no staff to
lean upon. Nothing but the foul
grave left to our hopes!
Nothing but darkness, dust and
ashes? No love, no recognition, no
fond greetings in the future with
the dear ones that left US so long
agoi No Jesus with outstretched
arms plying and forgiving, to
gather to His bosom the weary and
heart6roken beyond 1.-The valley OF
the shadow of deathr No one at