The daily Cairo bulletin. (Cairo, Ill.) 1878-1???, 1880-04-25
INGERSOLL A PLAGIARIST.


A small but appreciative audience gath
cred at the Centenary church on West Mon
roe street last evening to listen to lecture
by Mr.. Frank Jervis, a well-known local
journalist, entitled Col. Ingersoll, the
Champion Plagiarist Of the Nineteenth
Century" Among the audience were quite
number Of well-known clergymen, who
listened with attention to the account of
how and where Ingersoll got a 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 gwen;
He began by stating that he should not
ask the indulgence of his hearers in regard
to the matter embraced in his lecture, as he
thought it was the business of every man
to do what he could, when
the very foundations of civic
and religious liberty were endangered.
Infdeity cropped out at stated periods
exactly like mushrooms. Ingersoll, the
great iconoclast of the age, had been col
Letting the accumulated fugus OF inidelity
for years, and was now affecting the world
with his stolen eloQuence. The speaker
quoted from the Rambler Johnson's
definition of the word plagiarism, and pro-
ceeded to score Col. Ingersoll numerically.
If Ingersoll's mouthings were to perish,
every word he had spoken and every idea
advanced by him could be easily replaced
by careful search among the works Of the
infdel writers OF the past 200 years.
The speaker then proceeded to read eX-
tracts from lngersolls various lectures, and
to substantlate his charge that he was guilty
of plagiarism, read quotations from Holy
okes discussion with Grant in London dur
ing 1853. He claimed that Ingersol's say
ing that she would 60 to hell with his rea-
son 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 successor 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 had
stated was the best one in the course, he
had searched the sums of infdel writings
for material. His famous aphorism, "An
honest God the noblest work of man." was
cribbed from work published in London
by Charles Blount in 1863 and some of his
most pungent and foul illusions to Chris.
tianity and the clergy were taken from a
work so foul that It's publication and circu-
lation had been suppressed in its own
county, namely, "The Life of the God, 81
by Eugene Baptiste Parnry, Frenhman.
"The Mistakes Of Moses was almost a
literal copy Of the doubts Of Infdels, " pub.
lished in London in 1888 by James Watson,
and the speaker quoted passage after pass.
age from the two works to prove the asser-
ton. lngersoll displayed in all his writ.
ings considerable ingenuity in the way in
which he pulled, twisted and entangled the
language Of the writers from whom he Gull.
ed, but not particle of originality. 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 sub.
jects will discover its progenitor. Dean
Switt's aphorism ''that the less bottle has
IN 1t, the more Of a row it makes in pourino
1t out, would aptly apply to Ingersoll and
yet he had the adamantme check to assert
that any man who did not do his own think
ing was a slave
He concluded by saying that the church
was in no danger of disruption from Inger.
soils efforts to overthrow it, and that such
q religion as he advocated could never oh.
tain foothold among people who believed
in the purity of home and future exis.
tence beyond the grave.