The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1886-07-04
THEY FAIL TO AGREE.
a CauStic Criticism of niger
soil and His Teachings.
FIGHTING THE GREAT ORATOR.
An Analysis Of Some OF the Sayings Of
the Notorious Free Thinker
His Ideas.

gave a popular entertainment at tn
Academy of Music, end invited tn,
same kind ofcriticism that is challenged
by other forms of Sunday-night enter
tainment. His audience was larg'
and eager one. The proportion Of mer
to women was four to one. At SIS Mr.
IngersoIl made his appearance with hi!
manuscript. and wss received with ap-
plause.
He is somewhat rotund, bald headed
unctuous and vital man, with a paunch
that reminds you of medieval monk
ford, adipose face and head as round
as bullet, indicative rather of a prac-
teal enjoyment than Of reflective la
Dor. His fist is pudgy and has doughty
thud when he whacks the immortals.
His little eye twinkle. with saponaceous
humor when he is irreverent, and fash
a trifle when he is blasphemous.
The name of the entertainment was
myths and Miracles" and il furnished
both in abundance. In form it was a
lecture; in effect it was a circus.
II set out with sprightly description
of the thing Mr.. Ingersoll calls spiritu-
ally. The man" said he. "who crawls
in the dust, begging a God of infinite
mercy not to damn him is. not spiritual
The really spiritual man is he who
writes a poem. paints p cture, carves
q statue, composes a piece of music or
delivers an Grafton. There is something
more spiritual in the sayings of one of
Shakespeare clowns than You can find
IN all the Pentateuch. There is some
thing more truly spiritual in Burns "A
mans q man for all that than there is
| in the whole of the New Testament
There is more of the spiritual in the
Declaration of Independence than IL
ali God said to Moses on Mount Sinai.
The is more of the spiritual in the
Venus OF Milo than there is in the
whole Bible spiritually roosts some
Burns Daisy and the really spiritual
man was ne who filed the homes of the
people with art"
As near as could get to what Bob
meant l. was this-the moment you set
up Venus OF Milo in a poor mans
home, he is seized With burning cesire
TO rush out and do unto others as he
would have Others do unto him, and I
could not help wondering what would
be the spiritual effect of that other work
of classic art, 'Beda and the Swan"
1t was impossible not to feel great ad-
miration tor Bob at this point. His
Imagination worked more miracles in
forty minutes than Moses worked in
forty years. Still there was something
edifying in ii all. ana for the first time
in my life, this view of art explained 10
me why Greece reached such an eleya-
ton of spirituality during the era of
her greatest art development, and why
Rome became so saint-like when she
had plundered the art treasures of the
world.
Bob then launched into u fervid de-
scription of the spirituality OF Beet
hoven, making the objectionable mis-
take Of assigning definite and particular
ideas and emotions TO absolute music.
When he delivered this lecture in |
Brooklyn, he insisted that in "Lohen-
grin" we may hear the refrains of all |
the mighty music OF the past" an as |
sertion that will make Wagnerites smile |
for II there was anything the old master
tried TO do II was 20 Get away from the |
refrains of the past. Bob was NOT aware |
that the music of "Lohengrin. /" which |
he specially praised, was RELIGIOUS |
music, built on an orthodox story and !
offered In prayers praise 70 an ortho-
dox God.
A sufficient explanation of this as
thetic view OF spirituality was made |
when the speaker summed IL all mn nv /
asking, What is the end and purpose OF |
our lives? and answering the question /
oracularly by saying: The increase or 1
human happiness, This epicurean SEN
timent determined Mr., IngersoIIis spirit
uality pretty effecually and il struck
the young stock brokers and blood who
had come out for good time as inspir-
alton. There wasn't glutton or a To- K
luptuary IN the house whose spiritual
itydid not move in that epIcycle. But
probably their views differed as 10 the
means of securing that happiness.
Hsying brightly declared that the
truly spiritual men of the world were
the poets who wrote of xkylarks and /.
daisies, Bob then proceeded to pitch
intoehe myth makers. res.fully ignor-
ant OF the TACT that most of the mythsI
were made by the poets themselves 4
% Myths. observed Bob. with that corn-
piacent authority that abrogates a God
or misquotes q paragraph with equal
pulssance- are fslsehoods, and false
hoods cAnpot EvelY Then In the at
tempt 10 show tia Christian myths are
talsehoods. he Performed q psralogisticl
lcdt blet NOulQ make NasSar SOPHIE III
more laugh, This is the EaF he did n
Il want 70 show you tonight" he said'
that Christianity has not even tn Al
merit OF inventlng one OF the myths on
which il rests. The myth of the Gar
len of Eden is universal" This estab-
ishment of the universally of false
1Ood-a feat never before attempted ex-
,ept BY the gentleman who insisted thar I
! falsehood could not Eve--seemed to
aim TO convict Christianity OF q lie.
But he kept right on. Long Before
Moses was born. he said, thousands
If years before Noah Was born, thisi j
egend OF the Garden of Eden was cur !
ent among mea.Hu-ia .Frr-r {
Bob Ingerson, it will be perceived, is {
ne only man At present on deck in =
who knows what was cur. c
ent among men thousands Of years
'efore Noah was born II must have Y
angled up some OF the schoolboys il b
heir chronology. When you come to u
dant Garden of Eden in prehistoric
ines, the myth maker becomes 8 rather -c
seble person oy the side os 4 the mi: acl- I
'orker from Peoria But on he went: n
le food was another universal myth. T
his statement. however, was less i'm a
stuoaty than sheer ignorance. As N