The Pensacola journal. (Pensacola, Fla.) 1898-1985, 1906-08-04
A Gem in Classic Diction
and Finished Rhetoric.

and Finished Rhetoric.
In the rush and haste and turmoil
which characterizes the making of q
daily newspaper Of the present time
we seldom look for those finished
pieces of English and those fine forms
of expression which in the early days
played such an important part in the
regulations of the makers of our ear
lier journalism.
Occasionally, however, We find an
exception to the general rule and from
the daily grind there comes a gem OF
classic English that sparkles with a
radience of purest light and that i'm
mediately attracts attention in the
mass of common matter which forms
its setting.
We find an example Of this in the
following editorial from the Live Oak
Democrat, entitled "A Fame that Has
Faded" the writer of which demon,
strates himself to be a master of clean
English and classic diction:
A movement has been inaugurated
up in Illinois to raise funds for the
erection of q monument to the mem.
DRY of the late Col. Robert G. niger
soil at Peoria, his old home town in
that state.
But few Yeas ago Col. IngersolPs
fame belted the globe and no name in
this country was more familiar among
the people generally. He was an az
nostic-"The Great Agnostic" and
he enforced his agnosticism with rare
force and eloquence. He denied and
derided Christianity, and his remark
able powers of wit and humor and
satire and irony and invect!ve were
all employed to dishonor and mint,
mize the only Revelation We have
which gives promise of life beyond
the grave and fruition hereafter OF
the hopes which glow in every human
heart and refuse to be eXtinguIshed.
He wrote books with the same mo-
and the charm of his eloquence on
the printed page, no less than with
the spoken word, spread his name
through the world and he seemed to
have secured place in history as a
monumental man-almost an epoch
maker-who had done a great work,
and whose fame would last forever,
He was warm-hearted, charitable, pure
in private life, devoted to his family
and model citizen.
But one day he dropped dead, and
with his passing, his vast repute that
seemed so solid dissipated swiftly like
the "baseless fabric of dream" He
went out of fashion by no gradual pro-
cess, but like light snuffed out. His
books ceased to be the vogue; his apt
sayings were no longer quoted, and
popularity once unrivaled In his pecu.
liar field, shrunk and withered away
until now there Is no trace OF 1t left,
and there are plenty of well informed
people who would have to think twice
when his name was mentioned, TO re-
call the man.
Nor Is there any marvel in this swift
decay OF renown so wide extended
no arbitrary revenge Of an insulted
and indignant Deity. Ingersoll preach
ed the gospel of negat.on and despair
and for a dollar a head In lecture hall
all over the country he coarsely de-
nounced the rel lon pfec. Jus 49,.
price to the Christian world, and offer
ed nothing to take its place. The Ias
cination of his style and glitter Of his
words made it all "go'' with thous.
ands while the man himselI las.ea,
but when the Reaper claimed him and
he went into the void Death a blight
as fatal as it was sudden seized upon
all his work, his speeches and lee
lures and books; his following seemed
to melt away or at least to lose its
cock-sure aggressiveness, and today
In.gersollism, so dreaded by the church
while he lived, is vanished factor,
an eliminated force in modern
thought.
True, agnosticism still lives. and
freethinking on the deep and solemn
problems of religion shows no diminu.
ton in vitality; but the impress
which Ingersoll put upon it. the i'm.
pulse which he gave it, seemed to die
with the man, and because he hired
himself out to lecture bureaus as a
peripatetic iconoclast, ruthless mer-
cenary destroyer, seeking in almost
flippant spirit to tear down all that
stood between mankind and the des-
pair of materialism, the world has I'M
consciously revenged itself upon him
by forgetting the man and sending all
that he left in print to the limbo OF
literary and philosophic rubbish.
The strong critical OF creative minds
who do their work in the serious, rev.
erent spirit Of sincere investigation.
not Needless of the bitter, piteous cries
OF world cropping In the thick dark
ness of sin and sorrow and holding
with tremulous hope to the single
strand Of faith that NAV lead II to the