Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll, vol 1 | Page 9

be watched over and protected,
some pray for riches, some for rain, some want diseases stayed, some
vainly ask for food, some ask for revivals, a few ask for more wisdom,
and now and then one tells the Lord to do as he thinks best. Thousands
ask to be protected from the devil; some, like David, pray for revenge,
and some implore, even God, not to lead them into temptation. All
these prayers rest upon, and are produced by the idea that some power
not only can, but probably will, change the order of the universe. This
belief has been among the great majority of tribes and nations. All
sacred books are filled with the accounts of such interferences, and our
own bible is no exception to this rule.
If we believe in a power superior to nature, it is perfectly natural to
suppose that such power can and will interfere in the affairs of this
world. If there is no interference, of what practical use can such power
be? The scriptures give us the most wonderful accounts of divine
interference: Animals talk like men; springs gurgle from dry bones; the
sun and moon stop in the heavens in order that General Joshua may
have more time to murder; the shadow on a dial goes back ten degrees

to convince a petty king of a barbarous people that he is not going to
die of a boil; fire refused to burn; water positively declined to seek its
level, but stands up like a wall; grains of sand become lice; common
walking-sticks, to gratify a mere freak, twist themselves into serpents,
and then swallow each other by way of exercise; murmuring streams,
laughing at the attraction of gravitation, run up hill for years, following
wandering tribes from a pure love of frolic; prophecy becomes
altogether easier than history; the sons of God become enamored of the
world's girls; women are changed into salt for the purpose of keeping a
great event fresh in the minds of man; an excellent article of brimstone
is imported from heaven free of duty; clothes refuse to wear out for
forty years, birds keep restaurants and feed wandering prophets free of
expense; bears tear children in pieces for laughing at old men without
wigs; muscular development depends upon the length of one's hair;
dead people come to life, simply to get a joke on their enemies and
heirs; witches and wizards converse freely with the souls of the
departed, and God himself becomes a stone-cutter and engraver, after
having been a tailor and dressmaker.
The veil between heaven and earth was always rent or lifted. The
shadows of this world, the radiance of heaven, and the glare of hell
mixed and mingled until man became uncertain as to which country he
really inhabited. Man dwelt in an unreal world. He mistook his ideas,
his dream, for real things. His fears became terrible and malicious
monsters. He lived in the midst of furies and fairies, nymphs and naiads,
goblins and ghosts, witches and wizards, sprites and spooks, deities and
devils. The obscure and gloomy depths were filled with claw and
wing--with beak and hoof--with leering look and sneering mouths--
with the malice of deformity--with the cunning of hatred, and with all
the slimy forms that fear can draw and paint upon the shadowy canvas
of the dark.
It is enough to make one almost insane with pity to think what man in
the long night has suffered: of the tortures he has endured, surrounded,
as he supposed, by malignant powers and clutched by the fierce
phantoms of the air. No wonder that he fell upon his trembling
knees--that he built altars and reddened them even with his own blood.
No wonder that he implored ignorant priests and impudent magicians
for aid. No wonder that he crawled groveling in the dust to the temple's

door, and there, in the insanity of despair, besought the deaf gods to
hear his bitter cry of agony and fear.
The savage as he emerges from a state of barbarism, gradually loses
faith in his idols of wood and stone, and in their place puts a multitude
of spirits. As he advances in knowledge, he generally discards the petty
spirits, and in their stead believes in one, whom he supposes to be
infinite and supreme. Supposing this great spirit to be superior to nature,
he offers worship or flattery in exchange for assistance. At last, finding
that he obtains no aid from this supposed deity--finding that every
search after the absolute must of necessity end in failure--finding that
man cannot by any possibility conceive of the conditionless--he begins
to investigate the facts by which he is surrounded, and to depend upon
himself.
The people are beginning to think, to reason and to investigate. Slowly,
painfully,