The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1888-06-17
PUNCTURING THE PAGAN
ON INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO WILL
lam E. GLADSTONE.


Better Book Than the Bible2-Com-
mon Sense and the Pagan.
NEW YORK, June 16.-Mr Robert G.
Tngersoll occupies large place in the pop
uar eye. l suppose it may be fairly said
of him that he is one of the after-dinner
lions of New York. He has also become
what is known as ''The Starr contributor
m one of our popular magazines. He min
oles savoire faire with infilelity and is
called in the newspapers the Genial Pagan
and in the club of good fellows the Doughty
A0nostic. If he lectures. he draws the
emusement seeking thousands; if he writes
ba is read by the masses; if he eulogizes at
BANQUET he is eulogized in return by the
oress. if he pleads case i'll the court room
4 will be full of listeners who desire to hear
him avoid the issue and overwhelm the
jury
therefore conspicuous, and the testimony of
his acouaintances and his antagonists is
that he is genial, generous and brilliant.
II is fair question, however, if his genial
;tv. his generosity and his brilliancy can
entirely make up in the domain Of thought
for the lack of modesty, accuracy and in
sight.
Examined through some other and
clearer medium than that of popular ap-
nlause and Mr.. Ingersolfs eminence as
teacher, a critic, reformer, a thinker or
philosopher bears no sort of relation to
his eminence as a genial good fellow.
Viewed through the lens of his own
rhetoric he is a Diabous to weak minds.
Viewed through the microscope of ordi-
nary scholarship, he is resolved into dia-
tome.
And vet it is as an authoritative expert in
matters which command the ripest scholar
ship that he insists on being heard. And it
il a somewhat notable fact that all ccclesi-
" atical antagonists be has had have taken
at once to a REORGANIZATION of the christian
evidences, whereas if they had examined
him in the spirit and with the method of
modern criticism they would have found
that he had neither the knowledge nor the
ability to disturb those evidences.
An opponent whose desire is not to con-
nuer but to cavort will dodge the sword of
the Lord and of Gideon as it is now welded
and Sing smalr' at syllogism, and after
assaulting all creeds with impunity get
knocked fiat by the census.
| consider it fortunate for a toiling
world that it has taken Mr. Ingersoll on the
lump and has not been compelled to follow
him as closely as l have. But cannot see
how that busy world, had it been so in
clined or so compelled, could have escaped
from the amazement that betrays itself in
Mr. Gladstone'S reply. or the indignation
which Judge jeremiah Black put into one
phrase when he called Mr.. Ingersolls arti-
Gle in the North American ReUtetU Of Nov
ember 1881, the ''foulest libel ever ut
tered against God or man"
Mr. IngersolPs attitude and assumption
in everything he has said or written are
the most preposterous that can be exhib-
tied in a task calling for judicious fairness,
impartial investigation, interchangeable re-
search and careful, deliberate statement
From the loud beginnings of his Chicago
Sunday night irreverence, emphasized in
print by "peals of laughter, cloud and de-
risive laughter" and "long and continued
laughter" to his full literary bloom in
the North american ReuietO, there is con-
stantly and intentionally dlscernible to
the student. to the man of sensibility and
the man of discreet reason an effrontery of
attitude and fippant and arrogant cock
sureneSs that are strangely at variance with
all the processes and manifestations of
worthy human thought in any field OF seri-
Gus human endeavor.
Making every allowance for the latitude
of an orator, who in the warmth of speech
will say much that he would not deliberately
write, we have still an agreeing mass of
testimony in his spoken and written utter
ances to the overweening self-conceit and
reckless shallowness of the mans mind.
Thus, for example, the assertion that he
made in one of his lectures, after RAPID
and riotous denunciation of the Bible, that
he could write better book himself, stands
as the keynote of his character as an inves-
tigator and teacher.
When | first called public attention in
Boston to this astonishing declaration of
his he denied to j. NJ. Hill that he had ever
said it. Placed before his sober second con-
temptation, with all that it implied and all
that it betrayed, it began to have a new
significance, and he fastened to fasten it
upon the blank newspaper men. l re-
peated the charge from the platform in Prov
idence and other New England towns, and
Gen. George Sheridan is now repeating it
from the platform in the west, and Mr..
lngersoll has not up to date been able to
withdraw his attention from Mr.. Glad
stone and other foreign shining marks that
doubt loves with the proverbial affection
OF death, long enough to meet this simple
accusation of magnificent self-conceit with
the passing modesty of public denial.
In case that he should now see fit to
come to Hecuba, l wish to give here the
4 three reasons which Gen. Sheridan, before
an audience of 1000 intelligent people in
this city, advanced for believing that he
said it.
L-CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE
Gen. Sheridan read it from aprinted
pamphlet containing Mr.. Ingersolps lee
ture on "Skulls," which was bought at
the door of the New York academy OF mu-
SIC while Mr.. Ingersoll was lecturing and
which pamphlet contained on its cover, as
II for Authorization, the autograph Of the
lecturer. Thousands of this report were
sold here and elsewhere season after season.
That Mr.. Ingersoll would permit this if he
mad not SAID it seems Incredible If he did
not say it he was more dishonest than If he
did.
u-INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
The assertion that he could write bet
Ter book than the Bible is in exact accord
with iunumerable other assertions Of his.
1t carries with it the mental texture and
color Of peculiar judgment and unique
conceit 1t is of the same piece with the
declaration that the sentimental aphorisms
Of the French revolution were grander
words than ever issued from the lips of Je-
hovah."-(North American Review, NoUenl-
Ger, 1881, reply to Mr. Bldcb) 1t is a
complimentary sentence to the other that
there is more spirituality in one Of Shaks-
peare'S clowns than in the whole Penta-
teuch-( Lecture on myths and mirdcIes.)
Why should man who undertakes to re-
wise the Mosaic law not write better book
than the Biblel
Why should man who discovers more
spirituality in the Venus of Milo than in the
v,.N -. katN ha