Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1880-06-18
IngersOll a Plagiarist.

IngersOll Plagiarist.
A small but appreciative audience
gathered at the Centenary Church on
West Monroe street last evening to
listen to lecture by Mr.. Frank Jervis,
a we'll known local journalist, entitled
"Col. Ingersoll, the Champion Piaigarist
of the Nineteenth Century" Among the
audience we're quite number of we'll
known clergymen, who listened with
attention to the account of how and
where Ingersoll got portion at least
of his ammunition. The lecturer was
introduced by the Rev. DR.. Thomas,
pastor of the church. The following
synopsis of his remarks is given:
He began by stating that he should
not ask the indulgence of his hearers
| in regard to the matter embraced in his
ness of every man to do what he could,
when the very foundations of civic and
religious liberty were endangered. In
| fidelity cropped out at stated periods
exactly like mushrooms. Ingersoll, the
great icon0clast Of the age, had been
collecting the accumulated fungus OF
intidelity for years, and was no. afhict-
ing the world with his stolen eloquence.
The speaker quoted from the Ram
bier Johnson's definition of the word
plagiarism, and proceeded to score Col.
Ingersoil numerically. If Ingersoll's
moathings were to perish, every word
he had spoken and every idea advanced
10y him could be easily replaced by
careful search among the works OF the
infidel writer's of the past 200 years.
The speaker then proceeded to read
extracts from Ingersoll's various leo
lures, and, to substantiate his charge
that he was guilty of plagiarism. read
quotations from Holyoke's discussions
with Grant in London during 1853.
He claimed that Ingersolls saying that
"he would 60 to hell with his reason
rather than to heaven without it," was
stolen bodily from the writings of
Baron Holbach,. famous French free
thinker of the last century. "The
System of Nature" appeared to be
favorite hunting-ground for the sue.
cessOr OF Thomas Paine, and from that
book he had cribbed two-thirds of his
lecture on Ghosts" In preparing
his lecture on the gods, which he
stated was the best one in the course,
he had searched the slums of infidel
writings for material. His famous ap-
horism, "An honest god the noblest
work of man." was cribbed from
work published in London by Charles
Blount in 1868, and some of his most
Pungent and foul illusions to Chris
tianity and the clergy were taken from
a work so foul that its publication and
circulation had been suppressed in its
own country-namely, "The Life of
the Gods" by Eugene Baptiste Parnry,
Frenchman.
1.-THE Mistakes of Moses was al
most literal copy of the Doubts of
Infidels," published in London in 1888
by James Watson, and the speaker
quoted passage after passage from the
two works to prove the assertion. In
gersoll displayed in all his writings
considerable ingenuity in the way in
which he pulled, twisted and entangled
the language of the writer's from whom
he cullea, but not particle of origin
ality. In all his writings the speaker
traced the thoughts of some writer of
the past, and, said he, " He never makes
an epigram or advances an idea but
that still-hunt among the works Of
these old writers On kindred subjects,
will discover its progenitor." Dean
Swift's aphorisn "that the less bottle
has in it, the more of row it makes in
pouring it out" would aptly apply to
Ingersoll, and yet he had the adaman-
tine cheek to assert that any man who
did not do his own thinking was a
slave.
He concluded by saying that the
church was in no danger of disruption
from Ingersoll's efforts to overthrow
it. and that such a religion as he ad-
vocated could never obtain foothold
among people who believed in the
purity of home and future existence
beyond the grave.-Chic0go Tribune.