The Vermont watchman. [volume] (Montpelier, Vt.) 1883-1911, 1888-02-15
How to Treat IngersOll.

These questions" Are not niger
soils arguments unanswerable? What
are you going to do about it?"-having
been submitted to college president
by several of his students, he replied
as follows: so you are out half a
dollar apiece, are you? No, no, 1 can
not answer him. Boys, recall the in
cident in my eager and impetuous
youth of wasting a pound and half of
bird-shot on small owl. / followed
him from tree to tree, and shot away
as much as a hatful of feathers, and
when he died of fatigue | found that
his body was about as large as a rob-
in's and could put it to no earthly
use. He was deceptive target. If /
understand the gentleman from Peoria,
he wishes to liberate youth from the
incubus and thraldom of superstition.
That devastating influence of the coun-
try clergyman on $500 per annum and
a donation is what worries Robert, and
he proposes to cure it and eradicate it
for the trtling pittance of $3.50 per
lecture. For fifty cents he proposes to
liberate your mind from that influence
which was filtered into it from the
trembling lips of your mother, and free
you from the chains of superstition
loaded upon your soul by the rough but
loving hand of your father. OF course
he worries about you more than those
old fogies did-for fifty cents. You
look around you in the city here, and
you discover several millions of dollars
invested in hospitals, seminaries, asy
lums, forced on the suffering community
by this same mythical, miraculous and
supersttious incubus of religion. You
ask the gentleman from Peoria where
his little public institutions are, founded
by his peculiar teachings, and he says,
in an absent-minded manner, Fifty
cents at the door, Boys, you see
sometimes, poor mans little funeral
procession, with a democratic wagon
and little coffin in it, so small you
could carry it under your arm. A poor
couple walk behind it with breaking
hearts. Their baby is in the little coffin.
1t was their all. Their hearts are broken.
Oh, if we only had Bob here to tell them
about liberty and myths and miracles
for fifty cents-how it would cheer
them up. But you say, There are so
many infidels.' Boys, you are mis-
taken. An infdel is an abnormal
growth, and nature feels funny once in
awhile and creates freak-e. g., the
living skeleton, the fat woman, the two
headed girl. So there is about one in
fidel to a million sane men. The most
of these noisy fellows are amateur in
fidels. They talk Ingersoll in fair
weather and pray themselves hoarse
every time it thunders. A well-de-
veloped case of cholera morbus will
knock their infidelity out of them and
leave them in cold sweat, like china
dog in an ice-house. l know them.
The most of them are like the boy who
runs away from home and comes back
to stay with his father nights. Their
again, boys, take a look around yor
when you invest another fifty cents il
liberty and compare the crowd with
the kind of people you find in almos
any church. Is it the odor of sanctity
you smell? Hardly, boys, hardly. Blu
you can eat peanuts there and choke
on the shells, while you applaud the
funny Joke about the heaven where yor
know in your hearts your dear mother
is, or hear the humble Nazarene ridi
culed who, you think, and always will
think, gave a home to your weary ole
father when he left the earth. Yes
boys, his arguments are unanswer
able, and l think the seasons viii
come along, and the churches will con
tinue to bloom, and all nature will mos
exasperatingly and calmly perform he
functions if Robert is not answered
You know when the first steamer
crossed the Atlantic a great philosophe
was delivering most conclusive argu
ment to prove that by no possibilit,
could steam vessel cross the ocean
and that provoking steamer came snort
ing and sizzling and splurging RICH
into the harbor. Boys, so will God
foolish children go right on prayin!
and preaching aud dying and going t
heaven in spite of argument. "-ChriS