Chapter 8

_Answer_. In some respects. He was on our side during the war, and gave it as his opinion that the Union would be preserved. Mr. Gladstone congratulated Jefferson Davis on having founded a new nation. I shall never forget Beaconsfield for his kindness, nor Gladstone for his malice. Beaconsfield was an intellectual gymnast, a political athlete, one of the most adroit men in the world. He had the persistence of his race. In spite of the prejudices of eighteen hundred years, he rose to the highest position that can be occupied by a citizen. During his administration England again became a Continental power and played her game of European chess. I have never regarded Beaconsfield as a man controlled by principle, or by his heart. He was strictly a politician. He always acted as though he thought the clubs were looking at him. He knew all the arts belonging to his trade. He would have succeeded anywhere, if by "succeeding" is meant the attainment of position and power. But after all, such men are splendid failures. They give themselves and others a great deal of trouble--they wear the tinsel crown of temporary success and then fade from public view. They astonish the pit, they gain the applause of the galleries, but when the curtain falls there is nothing left to benefit mankind. Beaconsfield held convictions somewhat in contempt. He had the imagination of the East united with the ambition of an Englishman. With him, to succeed was to have done right.

_Question_. What do you think of him as an author?

_Answer_. Most of his characters are like himself--puppets moved by the string of self-interest. The men are adroit, the women mostly heartless. They catch each other with false bait. They have great worldly wisdom. Their virtue and vice are mechanical. They have hearts like clocks--filled with wheels and springs. The author winds them up. In his novels Disraeli allows us to enter the greenroom of his heart. We see the ropes, the pulleys and the old masks. In all things, in politics and in literature, he was cold, cunning, accurate, able and successful. His books will, in a little while, follow their author to their grave. After all, the good will live longest.

--Washington correspondent, _Brooklyn Eagle_, April 24, 1881.

ANSWERING THE NEW YORK MINISTERS.*

[* Ever since Colonel Ingersoll began the delivery of his lecture called _The Great Infidels_, the ministers of the country have made him the subject of special attack. One week ago last Sunday the majority of the leading ministers in New York made replies to Ingersoll's latest lecture. What he has to say to these replies will be found in a report of an interview with Colonel Ingersoll.

No man is harder to pin down for a long talk than the Colonel. He is so beset with visitors and eager office seekers anxious for help, that he can hardly find five minutes unoccupied during an entire day. Through the shelter of a private room and the guardianship of a stout colored servant, the Colonel was able to escape the crowd of seekers after his personal charity long enough to give some time to answer some of the ministerial arguments advanced against him in New York.]

_Question_. Have you seen the attacks made upon you by certain ministers of New York, published in the _Herald_ last Sunday?

_Answer_. Yes, I read, or heard read, what was in Monday's _Herald_. I do not know that you could hardly call them attacks. They are substantially a repetition of what the pulpit has been saying for a great many hundred years, and what the pulpit will say just so long as men are paid for suppressing truth and for defending superstition. One of these gentlemen tells the lambs of his flock that three thousand men and a few women--probably with quite an emphasis on the word "Few"--gave one dollar each to hear their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed. Probably nothing is so hard for the average preacher to bear as the fact that people are not only willing to hear the other side, but absolutely anxious to pay for it. The dollar that these people paid hurt their feelings vastly more than what was said after they were in. Of course, it is a frightful commentary on the average intellect of the pulpit that a minister cannot get so large an audience when he preaches for nothing, as an Infidel can draw at a dollar a head. If I depended upon a contribution box, or upon passing a saucer that would come back to the stage enriched with a few five cent pieces, eight or ten dimes, and a lonesome quarter, these gentlemen would, in all probability, imagine Infidelity was not to be feared.

The churches were all open on that Sunday, and all could go who desired. Yet they were not full, and the pews were nearly as empty of people as the pulpit of ideas. The truth is, the story is growing old, the ideas somewhat moss-covered, and everything has a wrinkled and withered appearance. This gentleman says that these people went to hear their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed. Is it possible that in a city where so many steeples pierce the air, and hundreds of sermons are preached every Sunday, there are three thousand men, and a few women, so anxious to hear "their Maker cursed and their Savior ridiculed" that they are willing to pay a dollar each? The gentleman knew that nobody cursed anybody's Maker. He knew that the statement was utterly false and without the slightest foundation. He also knew that nobody had ridiculed the Savior of anybody, but, on the contrary, that I had paid a greater tribute to the character of Jesus Christ than any minister in New York has the capacity to do. Certainly it is not cursing the Maker of anybody to say that the God described in the Old Testament is not the real God. Certainly it is not cursing God to declare that the real God never sanctioned slavery or polygamy, or commanded wars of extermination, or told a husband to separate from his wife if she differed with him in religion. The people who say these things of God--if there is any God at all--do what little there is in their power, unwittingly of course, to destroy his reputation. But I have done something to rescue the reputation of the Deity from the slanders of the pulpit. If there is any God, I expect to find myself credited on the heavenly books for my defence of him. I did say that our civilization is due not to piety, but to Infidelity. I did say that every great reformer had been denounced as an Infidel in his day and generation. I did say that Christ was an Infidel, and that he was treated in his day very much as the orthodox preachers treat an honest man now. I did say that he was tried for blasphemy and crucified by bigots. I did say that he hated and despised the church of his time, and that he denounced the most pious people of Jerusalem as thieves and vipers. And I suggested that should he come again he might have occasion to repeat the remarks that he then made. At the same time I admitted that there are thousands and thousands of Christians who are exceedingly good people. I never did pretend that the fact that a man was a Christian even tended to show that he was a bad man. Neither have I ever insisted that the fact that a man is an Infidel even tends to show what, in other respects, his character is. But I always have said, and I always expect to say, that a Christian who does not believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a curse to mankind, and that an Infidel who does believe in absolute intellectual liberty is a blessing to this world. We cannot expect all Infidels to be good, nor all Christians to be bad, and we might make some mistakes even if we selected these people ourselves. It is admitted by the Christians that Christ made a great mistake when he selected Judas. This was a mistake of over eight per cent.

Chaplain Newman takes pains to compare some great Christians with some great Infidels. He compares Washington with Julian, and insists, I suppose, that Washington was a great Christian. Certainly he is not very familiar with the history of Washington, or he never would claim that he was particularly distinguished in his day for what is generally known as vital piety. That he went through the ordinary forms of Christianity nobody disputes. That he listened to sermons without paying any particular attention to them, no one will deny. Julian, of course, was somewhat prejudiced against Christianity, but that he was one of the greatest men of antiquity no one acquainted with the history of Rome can honestly dispute. When he was made emperor he found at the palace hundreds of gentlemen who acted as barbers, hair-combers, and brushers for the emperor. He dismissed them all, remarking that he was able to wash himself. These dismissed office-holders started the story that he was dirty in his habits, and a minister of the nineteenth century was found silly enough to believe the story. Another thing that probably got him into disrepute in that day, he had no private chaplains. As a matter of fact, Julian was forced to pretend that he was a Christian in order to save his life. The Christians of that day were of such a loving nature that any man who differed with them was forced to either fall a victim to their ferocity or seek safety in subterfuge. The real crime that Julian committed, and the only one that has burned itself into the very heart and conscience of the Christian world, is, that he transferred the revenues of the Christian churches to heathen priests. Whoever stands between a priest and his salary will find that he has committed the unpardonable sin commonly known as the sin against the Holy Ghost.

This gentleman also compares Luther with Voltaire. If he will read the life of Luther by Lord Brougham, he will find that in his ordinary conversation he was exceedingly low and vulgar, and that no respectable English publisher could be found who would soil paper with the translation. If he will take the pains to read an essay by Macaulay, he will find that twenty years after the death of Luther there were more Catholics than when he was born. And that twenty years after the death of Voltaire there were millions less than when he was born. If he will take just a few moments to think, he will find that the last victory of Protestantism was in Holland; that there has never been one since, and will never be another. If he would really like to think, and enjoy for a few moments the luxury of having an idea, let him ponder for a little while over the instructive fact that languages having their root in the Latin have generally been spoken in Catholic countries, and that those languages having their root in the ancient German are now mostly spoken by people of Protestant proclivities. It may occur to him, after thinking of this a while, that there is something deeper in the question than he has as yet perceived. Luther's last victory, as I said before, was in Holland; but the victory of Voltaire goes on from day to day. Protestantism is not holding its own with Catholicism, even in the United States. I saw the other day the statistics, I believe, of the city of Chicago, showing that, while the city had increased two or three hundred per cent., Protestantism had lagged behind at the rate of twelve per cent. I am willing for one, to have the whole question depend upon a comparison of the worth and work of Voltaire and Luther. It may be, too, that the gentleman forgot to tell us that Luther himself gave consent to a person high in office to have two wives, but prudently suggested to him that he had better keep it as still as possible. Luther was, also, a believer in a personal Devil. He thought that deformed children had been begotten by an evil spirit. On one occasion he told a mother that, in his judgment, she had better drown her child; that he had no doubt that the Devil was its father. This same Luther made this observation: "Universal toleration is universal error, and universal error is universal hell." From this you will see that he was an exceedingly good man, but mistaken upon many questions. So, too, he laughed at the Copernican system, and wanted to know if those fool astronomers could undo the work of God. He probably knew as little about science as the reverend gentleman does about history.

_Question_. Does he compare any other Infidels with Christians?

_Answer_. Oh, yes; he compares Lord Bacon with Diderot. I have never claimed that Diderot was a saint. I have simply insisted that he was a great man; that he was grand enough to say that "incredulity is the beginning of philosophy;" that he had sense enough to know that the God described by the Catholics and Protestants of his day was simply an impossible monster; and that he also had the brain to see that the little selfish heaven occupied by a few monks and nuns and idiots they had fleeced, was hardly worth going to; in other words, that he was a man of common sense, greatly in advance of his time, and that he did what he could to increase the sum of human enjoyment to the end that there might be more happiness in this world.

The gentleman compares him with Lord Bacon, and yet, if he will read the trials of that day--I think in the year 1620--he will find that the Christian Lord Bacon, the pious Lord Bacon, was charged with receiving pay for his opinions, and, in some instances, pay from both sides; that the Christian Lord Bacon, at first upon his honor as a Christian lord, denied the whole business; that afterward the Christian Lord Bacon, upon his honor as a Christian lord, admitted the truth of the whole business, and that, therefore, the Christian Lord Bacon was convicted and sentenced to pay a fine of forty thousand pounds, and rendered infamous and incapable of holding any office. Now, understand me, I do not think Bacon took bribes because he was a Christian, because there have been many Christian judges perfectly honest; but, if the statement of the reverend gentlemen of New York is true, his being a Christian did not prevent his taking bribes. And right here allow me to thank the gentleman with all my heart for having spoken of Lord Bacon in this connection. I have always admired the genius of Bacon, and have always thought of his fall with an aching heart, and would not now have spoken of his crime had not his character been flung in my face by a gentleman who asks his God to kill me for having expressed my honest thought.

The same gentleman compares Newton with Spinoza. In the first place, there is no ground of parallel. Newton was a very great man and a very justly celebrated mathematician. As a matter of fact, he is not celebrated for having discovered the law of gravitation. That was known for thousands of years before he was born; and if the reverend gentleman would read a little more he would find that Newton's discovery was not that there is such a law as gravitation, but that bodies attract each other "with a force proportional directly to the quantity of matter they contain, and inversely to the squares of their distances." I do not think he made the discoveries on account of his Christianity. Laplace was certainly in many respects as great a mathematician and astronomer, but he was not a Christian.

Descartes was certainly not much inferior to Newton as a mathematician, and thousands insist that he was his superior; yet he was not a Christian. Euclid, if I remember right, was not a Christian, and yet he had quite a turn for mathematics. As a matter of fact, Christianity got its idea of algebra from the Mohammedans, and, without algebra, astronomical knowledge of to-day would have been impossible. Christianity did not even invent figures. We got those from the Arabs. The very word "algebra" is Arabic. The decimal system, I believe, however, was due to a German, but whether he was a Christian or not, I do not know.

We find that the Chinese calculated eclipses long before Christ was born; and, exactness being the rule at that time, there is an account of two astronomers having been beheaded for failing to tell the coming of an eclipse to the minute; yet they were not Christians. There is another fact connected with Newton, and that is that he wrote a commentary on the Book of Revelation. The probability is that a sillier commentary was never written. It was so perfectly absurd and laughable that some one--I believe it was Voltaire--said that while Newton had excited the envy of the intellectual world by his mathematical accomplishments, it had gotten even with him the moment his commentaries were published. Spinoza was not a mathematician, particularly. He was a metaphysician, an honest thinker, whose influence is felt, and will be felt so long as these great questions have the slightest interest for the human brain.

He also compares Chalmers with Hume. Chalmers gained his notoriety from preaching what are known as the astronomical sermons, and, I suppose, was quite a preacher in his day.

But Hume was a thinker, and his works will live for ages after Mr. Chalmers' sermons will have been forgotten. Mr. Chalmers has never been prominent enough to have been well known by many people. He may have been an exceedingly good man, and derived, during his life, great consolation from a belief in the damnation of infants.

Mr. Newman also compares Wesley with Thomas Paine. When Thomas Paine was in favor of human liberty, Wesley was against it. Thomas Paine wrote a pamphlet called "Common Sense," urging the colonies to separate themselves from Great Britain. Wesley wrote a treatise on the other side. He was the enemy of human liberty; and if his advice could have been followed we would have been the colonies of Great Britain still. We never would have had a President in need of a private chaplain. Mr. Wesley had not a scientific mind. He preached a sermon once on the cause and cure of earthquakes, taking the ground that earthquakes were caused by sins, and that the only way to stop them was to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. He also laid down some excellent rules for rearing children, that is, from a Methodist standpoint. His rules amounted to about this:

_First_. Never give them what they want. _Second_. Never give them what you intend to give them, at the time they want it. _Third_. Break their wills at the earliest possible moment.

Mr. Wesley made every family an inquisition, every father and mother inquisitors, and all the children helpless victims. One of his homes would give an exceedingly vivid idea of hell. At the same time, Mr. Wesley was a believer in witches and wizards, and knew all about the Devil. At his request God performed many miracles. On several occasions he cured his horse of lameness. On others, dissipated Mr. Wesley's headaches. Now and then he put off rain on account of a camp meeting, and at other times stopped the wind blowing at the special request of Mr. Wesley. I have no doubt that Mr. Wesley was honest in all this,--just as honest as he was mistaken. And I also admit that he was the founder of a church that does extremely well in new countries, and that thousands of Methodists have been exceedingly good men. But I deny that he ever did anything for human liberty. While Mr. Wesley was fighting the Devil and giving his experience with witches and wizards, Thomas Paine helped to found a free nation, helped to enrich the air with another flag. Wesley was right on one thing, though. He was opposed to slavery, and, I believe, called it the sum of all villainies. I have always been obliged to him for that. I do not think he said it because he was a Methodist; but Methodism, as he understood it, did not prevent his saying it, and Methodism as others understood it, did not prevent men from being slaveholders, did not prevent them from selling babes from mothers, and in the name of God beating the naked back of toil. I think, on the whole, Paine did more for the world than Mr. Wesley. The difference between an average Methodist and an average Episcopalian is not worth quarreling about. But the difference between a man who believes in despotism and one who believes in liberty is almost infinite. Wesley changed Episcopalians into Methodists; Paine turned lickspittles into men. Let it be understood, once for all, that I have never claimed that Paine was perfect. I was very glad that the reverend gentleman admitted that he was a patriot and the foe of tyrants; that he sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless; that he favored religious toleration, and that he weakened the power of the Catholic Church. I am glad that he made these admissions. Whenever it can be truthfully said of a man that he loved his country, hated tyranny, sympathized with the oppressed, and befriended the helpless, nothing more is necessary. If God can afford to damn such a man, such a man can afford to be damned. While Paine was the foe of tyrants, Christians were the tyrants. When he sympathized with the oppressed, the oppressed were the victims of Christians. When he befriended the helpless, the helpless were the victims of Christians. Paine never founded an inquisition; never tortured a human being; never hoped that anybody's tongue would be paralyzed, and was always opposed to private chaplains.

It might be well for the reverend gentleman to continue his comparisons, and find eminent Christians to put, for instance, along with Humboldt, the Shakespeare of science; somebody by the side of Darwin, as a naturalist; some gentleman in England to stand with Tyndall, or Huxley; some Christian German to stand with Haeckel and Helmholtz. May be he knows some Christian statesman that he would compare with Gambetta. I would advise him to continue his parallels.

_Question_. What have you to say of the Rev. Dr. Fulton?