Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1888-06-23
BOB'S BUNCOMBE.
TIE GREAT ATHEIST WHO THINKS
he KNOWS EVERYTHING.
ingersoll and Gladstone Again-Did
Bob Say He Could Write a Bet
ter Book than the Bible.

Angeles Express publishes letter from
Nym Crinkle, as follows:
Robert G. Ingersoll occupies a Jarg,
place in the popular eye. | suppose i
may be fairly said of him that he is one O.
the aGter-dinner lions of New York. He
has also become what is known as The
Star contributor to one OF our popular
Mage zines. He mingles sarorie fare with
iniidelity and is called in the newspapers
the Genial Pagan, and in the club Of good
fellows the Doughty Agnostic. If he lee
lures he draws the amusement-seeking
thousands; if he writes he is read by the
masses; if he eulogizes at banquet he is
eulogized in return by the press if he
pleads a case in the Courtroom it will be
full Of listeners who desire to hear him
avoid the issue and overwhelm the jury
Mr.. Ingersoll, whatever else he may be,
is therefore conspicuous, and the testimony
Of his acquaintance and antagonists is
that he is genial, generous and brilliant.
L is a fair question, however, if his
geniality, his generosity and his brilliancy
can entirely make up in the domain of
thought for the lack of modesty, accuracy
and insight.
Examined through some other and
clearer medium than that of popular ap-
plause, and Mr. Ingersolls eminence as a
teacher, critic, a reformer, a thinker or a
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 Diabolus to weak minds.
Viewed through the microscope of ordin-
airy scholarship, he is resolved into dia-
tome.
And yet it is an authoritative expert in
matters which command the ripest schoI-
arship that he insists on being heard And
it IS somewhat notable fact that all eccle-
siasticGl antagonists he has had have taken
at once to denomination of the Chris
tian evidences, whereas if they had exam
amined him in the spirit and with the
method of modern criticism they would
have found that he had neither the knowl-
edge nor ability to disturb those evidences.
IN opponent whose desire is not to con-
qUer, but to cavort, will dodge the sword
of the Lord and of Gideon as it is now
welded, and sing smalW at a syllogism,
and after assaulting all creeds with i'm
punity get knocked fiat by the census.
| consider it fortunate for toiling
world that it has taken Mr.. IngersolI on
the jump and has not been compelled to
follow him as closely as | have. But |
cannot see how that busy world, had
it been so inclined or so compelled, could
have escaped from the amazement that be-
trays itself in Mr.. Gladstone's reply, or
the Indignation which Judge jeremiah
Black put into one phase when he called
Nr. IngersolPs article in the North Ameri-
can ReDier of November, 1881, the 'foulest
libel ever uttered 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 n task calling for judicious fairness,
impartial investigation, indefatigable re-
search and careful, deliberate statement.
From the loud beginnings of his Chicago
Sunday night irreverence, emphasized in
print by "peals of laughter" loud and
derisive laughter" and "long continued
laughter" TO his full literary bloom in the
North american Revier, there is constantly
and uncemfortably discernible to the stu
dent, the man of sensIbility and the man
of discreet reasoning an efirontery of atti-
tude and fippant and arrogant cock-sure-
ness that are strangely at variance with
all the processes and manifestations of wor-
thy human thought in any field of serious
human endeavor.
Making every allowance for the latitude
of an orator, who in the warmth of speech
will say much that he would not deliber,
ately write, we have still an agreeing mass
of testimony in his spoken and written ut
terances to the overweening self-conceit
and reckless shallowness of the mans
mind
Thus, for example, The assertion that ht
made IN one of his lectures, after rapiC
and riotous denunciation of the Bible
tina. he
COULD WRITE \ BETTER BOOK
Himself, stands as the keynote of his char
ac;er is an investigator and teacher.
When | first called public attention il
Boston to this astonishing declaration o
his he denied to J. NJ. Hill that he haC
ever SAID H. Placed before his sober sec
ond contemplation, with ali that it implied
ara Sd. that it betrayed, it began to have
new significance, and he FASTENED to faster
it upon the blank newspaper men. l re
peated the charge from the platform il
Providence and other New England towns
and General George Sheridan is now re
peating it from the platform III the West
and Mr.. Ingersoll up to date has not beef
able to withdraw his attention from Nh
Gladstone and other foreign shining mark
that doubt loves with the proverbial affec
ton of death long enough to meet thi
simple accusation of magnificent self-concei
with the passing modesty of public de
nial.
In case that he should now see fit t
come 10 Hecuba, | wish to give here tn,
three reasons which General Sheridan, be
fore al audience of 1000 intelligent PEG
pie in this city, advanced for believin,
that he said it.
CIRCUMsTANTIAL EVIDENCE.
General Sheridan read it from printet
pamphlet containing Mr.. Ingersoll's lee
ture On Skulls" which was bought at tn
door Of the New York Academy of Musi
while Mr.. IngerSoll was lecturing, anC
which pamphlet contained on its cover, Il
if for naturalization, the autograph o
the lecturer. Thousands of this repor
were sold here and elsewhere, season aftel
season. That Mr.. Ingersoll would permi
this if he had not said it seems incredible
If he had not said it he was more dis
honest than if he did
INTERNAL EVIDENCE.
The assertion that he could write bet
ter book than the Bible is in exact accor,
with Innumerable other assertions of his
1t carries with it the mental texture an
color Of peculiar judgment and uniqu
conceiI. 1t is of the same piece with tn
declaration that the sentimental aphorisnl
of the French revolution "were grande
words than ever issued from the lips
Jehovah. - North American Rerieu, Nc
vember, 1881, Reply to Black.) 1t is
complementary sentence to the other thG
there Is more spirituality in one of Shake
speare's clowns than in the whole Pent;
teuch.-Q,ec on Myths and Miracles
Why should a man who undertakes I
revise the Mosaic law not write bette
book than the Bible?
Why should man who discovers MOI
spirituality in the Venus Of Milo than i
the whole Bible not write Il better boo
than the Bible?
Why should man who adjudicates ii
infinite with the ready appraisal of coul
try auctioneer not improve on the write
oracle
ORAL TESTIMONY.
There is one more reason why belle,