Ingersollia. Robert Green Ingersoll
446. Jehovah's Promise Broken
447. Character Bather than Creed
448. Mohammed the Prophet of God
449. Wanted!—A Little More Legislation
450. Is all that Succeeds Inspired?
451. The Morality in Christianity
452. Miracle Mongers
453. The Honor Due to Christ
454. Christianity has no Monopoly in Morals
455. Old Age in Superstition's Lap
456. Ararat in Chicago
457. How Gods and Devils are Made
458. The Romance of Figures
459. God and Zeno
460. Why was Christ so Silent?
461. The Philosophy of Action
462. Infinite Punishment for Finite Crimes.
463. Whence Came the Gospels?
464. Mr. Black's Admission
465. The Stars Upon the Door of France
A KIND WORD FOR JOHN CHINAMAN
466. The Select Committee Afraid
467. The Gods of the Joss-House and Patmos
468. A Little Too Late
469. Christianity has a Fair Show in San Francisco
470. An Arrow from the Quiver of Satire
471. We Have no Religious System
472. Congress Nothing to Do with Religion
473. Concessions of the Illustrious Four!
474. Do not Trample on John Chinaman
475. Be Honest with the Chinese
476. An Honest Merchant the Best Missionary
477. Good Words from Confucius
478. The Ancient Chinese
479. The Chinese and Civil Service Reform
480. Invading China in the Name of Opium and Christ
481. Don't be Dishonest in the Name of God
CONCERNING CREEDS AND THE TYRANNY OF SECTS
482. Diversity of Opinion Abolished by Henry VIII
483. Spencer and Darwin Damned
484. The Dead do Not Persecute
485. The Atheist a Legal Outcast in Illinois
486. How the Owls Hoot
487. The Fate of Theological Students
488. Trials for Heresy
489. Presbyterianism Softening
490. The Methodist "Hoist with his own Petard."
491. The Precious Doctrine of Total Depravity
492. Guilty of Heresy
493. Dishonest Teachers.
494. Self-Reliance a Deadly Sin!
495. A Hundred and Fifty Years Ago
496. The Despotism of Faith
497. Believe, or Beware
498. Calvin's Petrified Heart
499. Logic Unconfined.
500. Politeness at Athens!
501. The Tail of a Lion
502. While the Preachers Talked the People Slept
503. Christianity no Friend to Progress
504. Where is the New Eden?
505. The Real Eden is Beyond
506. Party Names Belittle Men
A FEW PLAIN QUESTIONS
507. Where Did the Serpent Come From?
508. Must We Believe Fables to be Good and True? Must we, in order to be
509. Why Did Not God Kill the Serpent?
510. Questions About the Ark
511. Was Language Confounded at Babel.
512. Would God Kill a Man for Making Ointment?
513. How Did Water run up Hill?
514. Would a Real God Uphold Slavery?
515. Will There Be an Eternal Auto da Fe?
516. Why Hate an Atheist?
ORIENT PEARLS AS RANDOM STRUNG
INGERSOLL'S ORATION AT HIS BROTHER'S GRAVE
INGERSOLL'S DREAM OF THE WAR
EPIGRAMS.
DEFINITIONS.
BELIEFS.
INGERSOLLIA
INTRODUCTION
Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll occupies a unique position. He is to a large extent the product of his own generation. A man of the times, for the times. He has had no predecessor, he will have no successor.
Such a man was impossible a hundred years ago; the probabilities are that a century hence no such man will be needed. His work needs only to be done once. One such "voice crying in the wilderness" is enough to stir the sluggish streams of thought, and set the reeds of the river trembling. It was said of Edward Irving, when he went to preach in that great wilderness of London, that he was "not a reed to be shaken by the wind, but a wind to shake the reeds." It would not be flattery in any sense if similar words were spoken concerning the man who has uttered the words of this book.
Daring to stand alone, and speak all the thought that is in him, without the miserable affectation of singularity, Colonel Ingersoll has reached a point from which he wields an influence both deep and wide over thoughtful minds. For the last few years he has been sowing strange seeds, with unsparing hand, in many fields; and probably no one is more surprised than he is himself to find how thoroughly the ground was prepared for such a seed-sowing.
Time is much too precious to discuss the mere methods of the sowing. No doubt many who have listened to this later Gamaliel, have been startled and shocked by his bold, and sometimes terrific utterances; but after the shock—when the nerves have regained