Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll

Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll -
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Title: Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll - Latest
Author: Col. Robert Green Ingersoll

Release Date: June, 2005 [EBook #8389] [Yes, we are more than one
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Lectures of Col. R. G. Ingersoll--Latest

Contents
Thomas Paine Liberty of Man, Woman and Child Orthodoxy
Blasphemy Some Reasons Why Intellectual Development Human
Rights Talmagian Theology (Second Lecture) Talmagian Theology
(Third Lecture) Religious Intolerance Hereafter Review of His
Reviewers How the Gods Grow The Religion of our Day Heretics And
Heresies The Bible Voltaire Myth and Miracle Ingersoll's Letter, on
The Chinese God Ingersoll's Letter, Is Suicide a Sin? Ingersoll's Letter,
The Right To One's Life

Ingersoll's Lecture on Thomas Paine--Delivered in Central Music Hall,
Chicago, January 29, 1880 (From the Chicago Times, Verbatim
Report)

Ladies and Gentlemen:--It so happened that the first speech--the very
first public speech I ever made--took occasion to defend the memory of
Thomas Paine.
I did it because I had read a little something of the history of my
country. I did it because I felt indebted to him for the liberty I then
enjoyed--and whatever religion may be true, ingratitude is the blackest

of crimes. And whether there is any God or not, in every star that
shines, gratitude is a virtue.
The man who will tell the truth about the dead is a good man, and for
one, about this man, I intend to tell just as near the truth as I can.
Most history consists in giving the details of things that never
happened--most biography is usually the lie coming from the mouth of
flattery, or the slander coming from the lips of malice, and whoever
attacks the religion of a country will, in his turn, be attacked. Whoever
attacks a superstition will find that superstition defended by all the
meanness of ingenuity. Whoever attacks a superstition will find that
there is still one weapon left in the arsenal of Jehovah--slander.
I was reading, yesterday, a poem called the "Light of Asia," and I read
in that how a Boodh seeing a tigress perishing of thirst, with her mouth
upon the dry stone of a stream, with her two cubs sucking at her dry
and empty dugs, this Boodh took pity upon this wild and famishing
beast, and, throwing from himself the Yellowrobe of his order, and
stepping naked before this tigress, said: "Here is meat for you and your
cubs." In one moment the crooked daggers of her claws ran riot in his
flesh, and in another he was devoured. Such, during nearly all the
history of this world, has been the history of every man who has stood
in front of superstition.
Thomas Paine, as has been so eloquently said by the gentleman who
introduced me, was a friend of man, and whoever is a friend of man is
also a friend of God--if there is one. But God has had many friends who
were the enemies of their fellow-men. There is but one test by which to
measure any man who has lived. Did he leave this world better than he
found it? Did he leave in this world more liberty? Did he leave in this
world more goodness, more humanity, than when he was born? That is
the test. And whatever may have been the faults of Thomas Paine, no
American who appreciates liberty, no American who believes in true
democracy and pure republicanism, should ever breathe one word
against his name. Every American, with the divine mantle of charity,
should cover all his faults,