Memphis daily appeal. [volume] (Memphis, Tenn.) 1847-1886, 1882-04-20
BIRTHSTONE BOB
Pays His Respects to Talmage, of Brook
Ign, and Says the Pulpits OF the
Country are Filled
By Men without Constitutions or Health,
Mere Intellectual Shreds and
Patehes-Bad IDgersOll.

| NEW 1ORh, April 1.-The deIotu say .
Whether due to the popularity of the Sub
iect-Dr. Talmage's theology-or OF Colone
IDgersolPs rhetoric, the audience that filled
the Academy of Music last night was tat
| tering- Even Standing room was at &
premium in the large auditorium, the stagt
was crowded, and the reporters could scarce
| ly find elbow room down in the orchestrs
! pit. The different classes OF "men about
! town" were well represented. Colonel lnger-
| soil did not commence speaking until $3.50
O'Clock, and finished at 0:45 o'clock. Even
then he seemed not to have finished all that
he had TO say; yet despite. the interest and
applause that followed the delivery through
out he had overdrawn upon the patisnce OF
many of his listeners He began by saying
| that il was only a few years ago when the
pulpit was almost supreme. The palace
stood in the shadow of the cathedral
Men were not allowed to have any opinions
upon their government, nor any opinions
about where they came from nor where they
were going to. The kings did the govern
ing, the priests did the thinking, and, my
God, what thinking! If men had forever
obeyed the priests we should have all been
idiots tonight. They would have changed
the eagle of human reason into the blind
bat of faith. What has the church pro-
duced? What has it ever invented? The
church has been perpetual beggar; but,
Applause ]-of Hume and all free men, that
beggar is no longer on horseback, and it
gives me joy to state that even the walking
is not very good. lLaughter.l
PULPIT CANDIDATES.
There was a time when the priest was the
only educated man in the village; but by
and by he was surrounded by rivals, and the
people began TO see that he was not quite
sure of what he was preaching. Then the
priest grew envious, and was grateful for a
famine or pestilence that would bring men
in their despair back TO him once more.
To-day men of brains, OF red blood, have
left the pulpit; not all, but the few who re-
main are the nearest to infdels of any who
preach. Where does the aversge preacher
come from? A young man without consti-
tuition enough to be wicked laughter +
without health enough to enjoy the good
things OF this world, naturally fixes his eyes
on the next. People say he would make a
good minister. Laughter.l He is educated,
What is to be expected OF young men who
are educated in this way? They are the in
tellectual shreds and patches OF the world
mental ravellings-salvage. Laughter 7
They have the impudence to say that they
have been called to the ministry; that Al
mighty God looked all over the world to
find each one of their number and say,
IL.
peare was not called; yet he has done more
for this world than have all the preachers that
ever lived in it. Applause.
A great many OF these shepherds have
been good enough TO take me fer a text,
among them the Rev. Mr.. Talmage, OF
Brooklyn. l have nothing to do with the
character of Mr.. Talmage. That is outside
of the question. Some of his clerical
brethren seem to think that he has more
nI1la at a hat ha 90 -
pious Pantaloon; but l am satisfied that
these opinions are born of envy. He is the
only preacher in the Presbyterian church
that can draw an audience. / believe he is
honest, but he has some very curious ideas
of God and nature. He has made certain
charges against me, among them that / am
the champion blasphemer. Blasphemy is
the cry of bsfied priests. 1t is the point
where argument ceases and Islander begins
ply. A missionary who laughs at the
wooden god OF a savage is a blasphemer
To my thinking the man is blasphemer
who says that the God of this
universe-if there is such a Color
dered wars of determination and sane
toned polygamy. How can l hurt God
by expressing my honest opinions? know
thousands of people who are willing to do
anything for God, who does not need it, and
o.
Why should God be. so particular about me
believing his book? 1t is no more His than
the stars or the law of gravItation or any
thing in nature. / can ridicule the law of
gravitation, blespheme the multiplication
table, and he will not hold me responsible on
the last day, but once let me doubt His book
and I'm gone
MR.. TALMAGE's INTERPRETATIONS.
81 oE,o al.
holy things. A priest despises smile He
knows that mirthfulness tends to let men see
the ridiculous side of his religion, and he
doesn't want that examined. Mr.. Talmage
says that do not read the Bible correctly
when l say Eve was made from one of
Adams ribs. She was made from his side.
What did God take the side out with? Was
it with splinter of His omnipotence, out of
which Mr.. Talmage says he originally m ade the
world? If it is tue that our mother was made
out of such small material to start with, it
was the best job ever performed Such are
the arguments of q doctor of diviniy-.and
l should think that such divinity would
need doctor. [Laughter.] Mr. Talmage
says that the Bible. does not say the world
was made in six days-but in six good
whites. That is good term. 1t is like
telescope-you can push it in or pull it out
1t will tit all the geological discoveries of
the age. The truth is that the world is be-
ing made as much tonight at any period
of its existence. Mr.. Talmage says in an
swer to my argument against the probability
of vegetation existing before the sun did
that any schoolboy would have told me that
light could be had from the crystslliz alton
of rocks. Light, he says, may have come
from volcanic eruptions in other worlds.
How would you like to farm it by volcanic
eruptions in other worlds? Strange to say
Mr.. Talmage never thought of the glow
worm.
PERSONALITY
Standing in the pulpit, where only the
truth should be spoken, believing that in
idels have no rights which he is bound to
respect, that he need not care what he saws
about man in this world whom his God is
going to damn in the next, Mr. Talmage
said that was in favor of the circulation of
immoral literature. He said what he knew
to be untrue. He said it out of hatred: he
said it because he could not-and there is
no living preacher who can-answer the ar
guments l have advanced. Certain persons
were trying to stop the circulation of the
writings of freethinkers, on the ground that
they were immoral. To that was opposed.
hope the time is coming when not an i'm
moral word can be found in our Literature
but don't want to see the right of free
thought trampled under foot in the name of
wings of light; immoral literature is a
Shiny, crawling lizard. IApplause.1 Mr..
Talmage has also said that l was defeated
for the Office of governor of the State of Illi-
nois because l was an infdel. was can.
didate for that office, / am sorry to say.
and a committee waited on me to know
if 1 was an infdel. 1 told them 1 was.
and they said they would like to 20 for
me, but they were afraid their conztituents
would ego" for them. 1 preserved nv man
hood and lost the office. Colonel Ingersoll
briefly answered Mr.. Talmage's assertion
that he had dishonored his father and
mother. His father, he said, had lived long
enough TO believe that the Old Testament
was not the inspired Word OF God. His
mother died when he was but two years of
age, but if she were living now or if she lived
she would tell her son to preserve his own
manhood come what might. He also
answered several other of Mr. Talmaee's
biblical arguments. OF Mr.. Talmage's sug-
gestion that Jonah stayed in the whales
mouth and not in his belly, he said that
judging from the reverend gentleman's pho
tograPh he was just the man to entertain
such a posi- bility.