The morning times., 1896-03-30
ON L|BERTY'S ETHICS
IngerSOll ElOQuently ExpOundS
Freedom as a Creed.
DARING RAPS AT RELIGION
Immense Audience Applauded His
Metaphors and 0ratOry at
the New National.
DARING RAPS AT RELIGION

The eloquent agnoStic Ingersoll has found
god Liberty is the god of his idolatry,
TO use his own expressive language.
The magnificent lecture on Liberty
| which he delivered last evening at the New
| National Thcater could have left only one
of Two impressions on the big audience,
| either that the friends OF Jehovah were in
! a minority in the house or that personal
convictions were lost in the beauty OF the
orators language on the force OF his
| logic and philosophy.
There were ladies in boxes and every
where else in the house who Joined in the
! storms of dem onstrations which each
well-tcrmcd phrase brought forth.
Col. InGerSoll was particularly severe on
the mediaeval and Presbyterian religions.
! He scorified popes and priests and of the
| Presb ytcrians he said:
Il think that over every Presbyterian
! pulpit should be placed the inscription;
| This church was founded by John Calvin,
! the murderer
This conclusion he reached by reason OF
the fact that Calvin had Michael ServetuS
! burned at the stake.
What appeared 10 please The audience,
and especially the ladies, best, was his
| comparison of the East Indian theory Of
J Adam and Eve with the Bible narrative.
! He preferred the former, for the moral of
! the Oriental allegory is that God forgave
! them oth andmadc them happy. He didn't
! believe that Il great God could seriously
/ save or condemn people on mere matters
of theological controversy. he could not
conceive OF G od holding soul TO account
| for being immersed or baptized He didn t
! believe that Il God would hold up a soul
between Him and the light TO see Where WAS
| the water mark
! LIBERTY THE CHIEF REQUISITE.
Col. Ingcrsol did not follow the printed
! lecture, and in mTny instances greatly i'm
| proved the text. The full title of the
! lecture is, The Liberty of Man, Womun
and Child" He began thus:
what light is to the eyes, what air is
10 the lungs, what love is TO the heart,
| liberty is TO the soul of man. / believe
! in according 10 every human being every
right that ] enjoy and claim for myself.
! The man who viii do that is civilized.
/ The man who VIII not do that, / don't
care how many universities he has passed
! through, is simply barbarian
There is no slavery, ne said, but ignor-
ance; liberty is the child of intelligence.
From the tyrannies OF thrones and pull
| pits there is but one escape-iDtellcctual
| development What he would plead for
was liberty OF thought and expression
A great part of the lecture on this propo-
sition was devoted to description OF the
racks and other instruments of torture by
which ii was attempted to make all men
| think alike, which he assumed to be an
intellectual impossibility.
| Had they succeeded there would have
| been no inventions and the world would
yet be young and ignorant. The world
| Is beginning TO- pay homage to intellect,
/ to genius, to heart.
This world has not been fit to live
in until the last fifty years; it was not
/ CT "a nn1 hN-f
sublime and heroic North, rendered our
flag pure as the sky in which it floats.
| Civilization, tie contended. has kept pace
| with intellectual development from the
| lowest to the present form of man as an
! animal.
EMANCIPATION OF WOMEN.
He next touched on the emancipation OF
| woman. He regarded marriage as the
| holiest institution of man, and it took
| woman millions of years to come from the
| condition of the most abject slave to her
| present condition. The rings and chains
| woman wears are golden reminders of her
| former servitude-
| The religiOniSts traced all the evil of the
| world to woman. As for himself he would
| rather live in u world OF trouble with the
| woman he loved than in heaven peopletl
| only by men. He pleaded for equal rights
| as between men and women. Men talked
American man had yet been the equal OF
George Eliot, George Sand, Rose BonheuI
| or Mrs. Browning.
Happiness is the legal tender of the soul
| Joy is wealth. 1t is not necessary to be
| rich to be great or to be powerful to be
| happy. We have false standard OF
| greatness in the United States.
| I'VE think here that a man must be great
| that he must be notorious, that he must be
| extremely wealthy or that his name must
| be upon the putrid lips of rumor." l be
lieye in the fireside; believe in the de-
| mocracy of home; believe in the repubi
canism of the family; l believe in liberty
| equality and love-
RIGHTS OF THE YOUNG.
Col. Ingersoll next developed his ideas
on the emancipation OF children from Ger.
tain kinds of bondage. They have the same
rights as we have. They should be rearet
with kindness and love. not brutality He
then drew an amusing and edifying picture
OF the way children were brought up wheI
he was child, and especially as to theil
| Sunday experiences. long sermons, solemn
faces and themselves as convicts or pris.
oners all day long.
Call ME atheist, call me what you will
| intend so to treat my children that they can
| come TO my grave and truthfully say: He
| who sleeps here never gave us a moment of
! pain. From his lips now dust, never came
to us an unkind word. This was his philos
ophyas tothel liberty yofchildren epitomized >
There has never yet been upon the