Lectures of Col. R.G. Ingersoll | Page 8

beautiful painting in the world, and after taking you where it was should insist upon having your eyes shut, you would likely suspect either that he had no painting or that it was some pitiful daub. Should he tell you that he was a most excellent performer on the violin, and yet refused to play unless your ears were stopped, you would think, to say the least of it, that he had an odd way of convincing you of his musical ability. But would this conduct be any more wonderful than that of a religionist who asks that before examining his creed you will have the kindness to throw away your reason? The first gentleman says: "Keep your eyes shut; my picture will bear everything but being seen. Keep your ears stopped; my music objects to nothing but being heard." The last says: "Away with your reason; my religion dreads nothing but being understood."
So far as I am concerned, I most cheerfully admit that most Christians are honest and most ministers sincere. We do not attack them; we attack their creed. We accord to them the same rights that we ask for ourselves. We believe that their doctrines are hurtful, and I am going to do what I can against them. We believe that the frightful text, "He that believes shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be damned," has covered the earth with blood. You might as well say that all that have red hair shall be damned. It has filled the heart with arrogance, cruelty, and murder. It has caused the religious wars; bound hundreds of thousands to the stake; founded inquisitions; filled dungeons; invented instruments of torture; taught the mother to hate her child; imprisoned the mind; filled the world with ignorance; persecuted the lovers of wisdom; built the monasteries and convents; made happiness a crime, investigation a sin, and self-reliance a blasphemy. It has poisoned the springs of learning; misdirected the energies of the world; filled all countries with want; housed the people in hovels; fed them with famine; and but for the efforts of a few brave infidels, it would have taken the world back to the midnight of barbarism, and left the heavens without a star.
The maligners of Paine say that he had no right to attack this doctrine, because he was unacquainted with the dead languages, and, for this reason, it was a piece of pure impudence to investigate the scriptures.
Is it necessary to understand Hebrew in order to know that cruelty is not a virtue, that murder is inconsistent with infinite goodness, and that eternal punishment can be inflicted upon man only by an eternal fiend? Is it really essential to conjugate the Greek verbs before yon can make up your mind as to the probability of dead people getting out of their graves? Must one be versed in Latin before he is entitled to express his opinion as to the genuiness of a pretended revelation from God? Common sense belongs exclusively to no tongue. Logic is not confirmed to, nor has it been buried with, the dead languages. Paine attacked the Bible as it is translated. If the translation is wrong, let its defenders correct it.
The Christianity of Paine's day is not the Christianity of our time. There has been a great improvement since then. It is better now because there is less of it. One hundred and fifty years ago the foremost preachers of our time--that gentleman who preaches in this magnificent hall--would have perished at the stake. Lord, Lord, how John Calvin would have liked to have roasted this man, and the perfume of his burning flesh would have filled heaven with joy. A Universalist would have been torn to pieces in England, Scotland, and America. Unitarians would have found themselves in the stocks, pelted by the rabble with dead cats, after which their ears would have been cut off, their tongues bored, and their foreheads branded. Less than one hundred and fifty years ago the following law was in force in Maryland:
"Be it enacted by the right honorable, the lord proprietor, by and with the advice and consent of his lordship's governor, and the upper and lower houses of the assembly, and the authority of the same: That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, willingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, blaspheme or curse God, or deny our Savior, Jesus Christ, to be the son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, Son, and the Holy Ghost, or the God-head of any of the three persons, or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any profane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or the persons thereof and shall therefore be convicted by verdict, shall, for the first offense, be bored