 The next question is, did Thomas Paine recant? Mr. Paine had prophesied that fanatics would crawl and cringe around him during his last moments. He believed that they would put a lie in the mouth of death. When the shadow of the coming dissolution was upon him, two clergymen, measures Millidollar and Cunningham, called to annoy the dying man. Mr. Cunningham had the politeness to say, you have now a full view of death. You cannot live long. Whoever does not believe in the Lord Jesus Christ will assuredly be damned. Mr. Paine replied, let me have none of your popish stuff. Get away with you. Good morning. On another occasion a Methodist minister obtruded himself. Mr. Willett Hicks was present. The minister declared to Mr. Paine that, unless he repented of his unbelief, he would be damned. Paine, although at the door of death, rose in his bed and indignantly requested the clergymen to leave the room. On another occasion two brothers, by the name of Pigot, sought to convert him. He was displeased and requested their departure. Afterward Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton visited him for the express purpose of ascertaining whether he had in any manner changed his religious opinions. They were assured by the dying man that he still held the principles he had expressed in his writings. Afterward these gentlemen hearing that William Cobbett was about to write a life of Paine sent him the following note. I must tell you now that it is of great importance to find out whether Paine recanted. If he recanted then the Bible is true. You can rest assured that a spring of water gushed out of a dead dry bone. If Paine recanted there is not the slightest doubt about that donkey making that speech to Mr. Balam, not the slightest, and if Paine did not recant then the whole thing is a mistake. I want to show that Thomas Paine died as he has lived, a friend of man and without superstition, and if you will stay here I will do it. If you have been furnished with materials in respect to his religious opinions or rather of his recantation of his former opinions before his death, all you have heard of his recanting is false. Being aware that such reports would be raised after his death by fanatics who infested his house at the time it was expected he would die, we the subscribers' intimate acquaintances of Thomas Paine since the year 1776 went to his house. He was sitting up in a chair and apparently in full vigor and use of all his mental faculties. We interrogated him upon his religious opinions and if he had changed his mind or repented of anything he had said or wrote on that subject. He answered not at all and appeared rather offended at our supposition that any change should take place in his mind. We took down in writing the questions put to him and his answers there too before a number of persons then in his room, among whom were his doctor, Mrs. Bonneville, etc. This paper is mislaid and cannot be found at present, but the above is the substance which can be attested by many living witnesses. Thomas Nixon, Daniel Pelton. Mr. Jarvis, the artist, saw Mr. Paine one or two days before his death. To Mr. Jarvis he expressed his belief in his written opinions upon the subject of religion. B. F. Haskin, an attorney of the City of New York also visited him and inquired as to his religious opinions. Paine was then upon the threshold of death but he did not tremble. He was not a coward. He expressed his firm and unshaken belief in the religious ideas he had given to the world. Dr. Manley was with him when he spoke his last words. Dr. Manley asked the dying man and Dr. Manley was a Christian if he did not wish to believe that Jesus was the Son of God and the dying philosopher answered, I have no wish to believe on that subject. Amasa Woodworth sat up with Thomas Paine the night before his death. In 1839 Gilbert Vale, hearing that Wordsworth was living in or near Boston, visited him for the purpose of getting his statement and the statement was published in the Lincoln of June 5, 1830 and here it is. We have just returned from Boston. One object of our visit to that city was to see Mr. Amasa Woodworth, an engineer now retired in a handsome cottage and garden at East Cambridge Boston. This gentleman owned the house occupied by Paine at his death while he lived next door. As an act of kindness Mr. Woodworth visited Mr. Paine every day for six weeks before his death. He frequently sat up with him and did so on the last two nights of his life. He was always there with Dr. Manley the physician and assisted in removing Mr. Paine while his bed was prepared. He was present when Dr. Manley asked Mr. Paine if he wished to believe that Jesus Christ was the Son of God. He said that lying on his back he used some action and with much emphasis replied, I have no wish to believe on that subject. He lived some time after this but was not known to speak for he died tranquilly. He accounts for the insinuating style of Dr. Manley's letter by stating that that gentleman just after its publication joined a church. He informs us that he has openly proved the doctor for the falsity contained in the spirit of that letter boldly declaring before Dr. Manley who is still living that nothing which he saw justified the situation. Mr. Woodsworth assures us that he neither heard nor saw anything to justify the belief of any mental change in the opinions of Mr. Paine previous to his death. But that being very ill and in pain chiefly arising from the skin being removed in some parts by his long lying he was generally too uneasy to enjoy conversation on abstract subjects. This then is the best evidence that can be procured on this subject and we publish it while the contravening parties are yet alive and with the authority of Mr. Woodsworth. Gilbert Vale. A few weeks ago I received the following letter which confirms the statement of Mr. Vale. Near Stockton California Greenwood Cottage July 9th 1877. Colonel Ingersoll in 1812 I talked with a gentleman in Boston. I have forgotten his name but he was then an engineer of the Charleston Navy Yard. I am thus particular so that you can find his name on the books. He told me that he nursed Thomas Paine in his last illness and closed his eyes when dead. I asked him if he recanted and called upon God to save him. He replied no. He died as he had taught. He had a sore upon his side and when we turned him very painful and he would cry out oh God or something like that but said the narrator that was nothing for he believed in a God. I told him that I had often heard it asserted from the pulpit that Mr. Paine had recanted in his last moment. The gentleman said that it was not true and he appeared to be an intelligent truthful man. With respect I remain etc. Philip Graves, MD. The next witness is Willet Hicks a Quaker preacher. He says that during the last illness of Mr. Paine he visited him almost daily and that Paine died firmly convinced of the truth of the religious opinions that he had given to his fellow men. It was to this same Willet Hicks that Paine applied for permission to be buried in the cemetery of the Quakers. Permission was refused. This refusal settles the question of recantation. If he had recanted of course there would have been no objection to his body being buried by the side of the best hypocrites in the earth. If Paine recanted why should he be denied a little earth for charity. Had he recanted it would have been regarded as a vast and splendid triumph for the gospel. It would with much noise and pomp and ostentation have been heralded about the world. Here is another letter. Peore Illinois October 8, 1877. Robert G. Ingersoll esteemed friend. My parents were friends, Quakers. My father died when I was very young. The elderly and middle aged friends visited at my mother's house. We lived in the city of New York. Among the number I distinctly remember, Elias Hicks, Willet Hicks, and a Mr. Day who was a bookseller in Pearl Street. There were many others whose names I do not now remember. The subject of the recantation of Thomas Paine of his views about the Bible in his last illness or any other time was discussed by them in my presence at different times. I learned from them that some of them had attended upon Thomas Paine in his last sickness and ministered to his wants up to the time of his death, and upon the question of whether he did recant there was but one expression. They all said that he did not recant in any manner. I often heard them say they wished he had recanted. In fact, according to them, the nearer he approached death, the more positive he appeared to be in his convictions. These conversations were from 1820 to 1822. I was at that time from 10 to 12 years old, but these conversations impressed themselves upon me because many thoughtless people then blamed the society of friends for their kindness to that arch-infidel Thomas Paine. Truly yours, AC Hankinson. A few days ago I received the following. Albany, New York, September 27th, 1877. Dear sir, it is over 20 years ago that professionally I made the acquaintance of John Hodgeboom, a Justice of the Peace of the County Rincelere, New York. He was then over 70 years of age and had the reputation of being a man of candor and integrity. He was a great admirer of Paine. He told me he was personally acquainted with him and used to see him frequently during the last years of his life in the city of New York where Hodgeboom then resided. I asked him if there was any truth in the charge that Paine was in the habit of getting drunk. He said that it was utterly false, that he had never heard of such a thing during the lifetime of Mr. Paine and did not believe anyone else did. I asked him about the recantation of his religious opinions on his deathbed and the revolting deathbed scenes that the world heard so much about. He said there was no truth in them, that he had received his information from persons who attended Paine in his last illness and that he passed peacefully as we may say in the sunshine of a great soul. Yours truly, W. J. Hilton. The witnesses by whom I substantiate the fact that Thomas Paine did not recant and that he died holding the religious opinions he had published in the newspaper are, one, Thomas Nixon, Captain Daniel Pelton B. F. Haskin. These gentlemen visited him during his last illness for the purpose of ascertaining whether he had in any respect changed his views upon religion. He told them that he had not. Two, James Cheetham. This man was the most malicious enemy Mr. Paine had and yet he admits that Thomas Paine died placidly and almost without a struggle. Life of Thomas Paine by James Cheetham. Three, the ministers, Miller Dollar and Cunningham. These gentlemen told Mr. Paine that if he died without believing in the Lord Jesus Christ he would be damned and Paine replied, let me have none of your popish stuff. Good morning. Sherwin's Life of Paine, page 220. Four, Mrs. Headon. She told these same preachers when they attempted to obtrude themselves upon Mr. Paine again that the attempt to convert Mr. Paine was useless, that if God did not change his mind no human power could. Five, Andrew A. Dean. This man lived upon Paine's farm at New Rochelle and corresponded with him upon religious subjects. Paine's Theological Works, page 308. Six, Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom Paine lived. He gives an account of an old lady coming to Paine and telling him that God Almighty had sent her to tell him that unless he repented and believed in the blessed Saviour he would be damned. Paine replied that God would not send such a foolish old woman with such an impertinent message. Cleo Rickman's Life of Paine. Seven, William Carver, with whom Paine boarded. Mr. Carver said again and again that Paine did not recant. He knew him well and had every opportunity of knowing. Life of Paine by Vale. Eight, Dr. Manley, who attended him in his last sickness and to whom Paine spoke his last words. Dr. Manley asked him if he did not wish to believe in Jesus Christ and he replied, I have no wish to believe on that subject. Nine, Willet Hicks and Elias Hicks, who were with him frequently during his last sickness and both of whom tried to persuade him to recant. According to their testimony, Mr. Paine died as he lived, a believer in God and a friend to man. Willet Hicks was offered money to say something false against Paine. He was even offered money to remain silent and allow others to slander the dead. Mr. Hicks, speaking of Thomas Paine said, he was a good man. Thomas Paine was an honest man. Ten, Amasa Woodsworth, who was with him every day for some six weeks immediately preceding his death and sat up with him the last two nights of his life. This man declares that Paine did not recant and that he died tranquilly. The evidence of Mr. Woodsworth is conclusive. Eleven, Thomas Paine himself. The will of Mr. Paine, written by himself, commences as follows. The last will and testament of me, the subscriber, Thomas Paine, reposing confidence in my creator, God and in no other being for I know of no other nor believe in any other and closes with these words, I have lived an honest and useful life to mankind. My time has been spent in doing good and I die in perfect composure and resignation to the will of my creator, God. Twelve, if Thomas Paine recanted, why do you pursue him? If he recanted, he died in your belief. For what reason, then, do you denounce his death as cowardly? If upon his deathbed he renounced the opinions he had published, business of defaming him should be done by infidels, not by Christians. I ask Christians if it is honest to throw away the testimony of his friends, the evidence of fair and honourable men, and take the putrid words of avowed and malignant enemies. When Thomas Paine was dying, he was infested by fanatics, by the snakey spies of bigotry. In the shadows of death were the unclean birds of prey, waiting to tear with beak and claw the corpse of him who wrote The Rights of Man, and there lurking and crouching in the darkness were the jackals and hyenas of superstition ready to violate his grave. These birds of prey, these unclean beasts, are the witnesses produced and relied upon to malign the memory of Thomas Paine. One by one the instruments of torture have been wrenched from the cruel clutch of the church, until within the armory of orthodoxy there remains but one weapon. Slander. Against the witnesses that I have produced there can be brought just two, Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale. The first is referred to in the memoir of Stephen Grellett. She had once been a servant in his house. Grellett tells what happened between this girl and Paine. According to this account, Paine asked her if she had ever read any of his writings, and on being told that she had read very little of them, he inquired what she thought of them, adding that from such a one as she he expected a correct answer. Let us examine this falsehood. Why would Paine expect a correct answer about his writings from one who read very little of them? Was not such a statement devour itself? This young lady further said that the age of reason was put in her hands and that the more she read in it the more dark and distressed she felt and that she threw the book into the fire, whereupon Mr. Paine remarked, I wish all had done as you did, for if the devil ever had any agency in my work he had in my writing that book. The next is Mary Hinsdale. She was a servant in the family of Willet Hicks. The church is always proving something by a nurse. She, like Mary Roscoe, was sent to carry some delicacy to Mr. Paine. To this young lady, Paine, according to his account, said precisely the same thing that he did to Mary Roscoe, and she said the same thing to Mr. Paine. My own opinion is that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale are one person or the same story has been, by mistake, put in the mouths of both. It is not possible that the identical conversation should have taken place between Paine and Mary Roscoe and between him and Mary Hinsdale. Mary Hinsdale lived with Willet Hicks and he pronounced her story a pious fraud and fabrication. Another thing about this witness, a woman by the name of Mary Rockwood, a Hicksite Quaker, died. Mary Hinsdale met her brother about that time and told him that his sister had recanted and wanted her to say so at her funeral. This turned out to be a lie. It has been claimed that Mary Hinsdale made her statement to Charles Collins. Long after the alleged occurrence, Gilbert Vale, one of the biographers of Paine, had a conversation with Collins concerning Mary Hinsdale. Vale asked him what he thought of her. He replied that some of the friends believed that she used opiates and that they did not give credit to her statements. He also said that he believed what the friends said but thought that when a young Roman she might have told the truth. In 1818 William Cobbett came to New York. He began collecting material for a life of Thomas Paine. In this way he became acquainted with Mary Hinsdale and Charles Collins. Mr. Cobbett gave a full account of what happened in a letter addressed to the Norwich Mercury in 1819. From this account it seems that Charles Collins told Cobbett that Paine had recanted. Cobbett called for the testimony and told Mr. Collins that he must give time, place and circumstances. He finally brought a statement that he stated had been made by Mary Hinsdale. Armed with this document, Cobbett, in October of that year, called upon the said Mary Hinsdale at number 10 Anthony Street, New York, and showed her the statement. Upon being questioned by Mr. Cobbett she said that it was so long ago that she could not speak positively to any part of the matter. That she would not say that any part of the paper was true, that she had never seen the paper and that she had never given Charles Collins authority to say anything about the matter in her name. And so in the month of October, in the year of Grace, 1818, in the midst of fog and forgetfulness, disappeared forever one Mary Hinsdale, the last and only witness against the intellectual honesty of Thomas Paine. A letter was written to the editor of the New York World by Reverend A. W. Cornell in which he says, Sir, I see by your paper that Bob Ingersoll discredits Mary Hinsdale's story of the scenes which occurred in the death bed of Thomas Paine. No one who knew that good old lady would for one moment doubt her veracity or question her testimony. Both she and her husband were Quaker preachers and well-known and respected inhabitants of New York City. Ingersoll is right in his conjecture that Mary Roscoe and Mary Hinsdale were the same person. Her maiden name was Roscoe and she married Henry Hinsdale. My mother was a Roscoe and niece of Mary Roscoe and lived with her for some time. A. W. Cornell, Harpersville, New York. The editor of the New York Observer took up the challenge that I had thrown down. I offered one thousand dollars in gold to any minister who would prove or to any person who would prove that Thomas Paine recanted in his last hours. The New York Observer accepted the wager and then told a falsehood about it. But I kept after the gentlemen until I forced them in their paper published on the first of November 1877 to print these words. We have never stated in any form nor have we ever supposed that Paine actually renounced his infidelity. The accounts agree in stating that he died a blaspheming infidel. This, I hope, for all coming time will refute the slanders of the churches yet to be. The next charge they make is that Thomas Paine died in destitution and want. That, of course, would show that he was wrong. They boast that the founder of their religion had not wear on to lay his head. But when they found a man who stood for the rights of man, when they say that he did, that is an evidence that this doctrine was a lie. Won't do. Did Thomas Paine die in destitution and want? The charge has been made over and over again that Thomas Paine died in want in destitution, that he was an abandoned pauper, an outcast, without friends and without money. This charge is just as false as the rest. Upon his return to this country in 1802 he was worth $30,000 according to his own statement, made at that time in the following letter and addressed to Cleo Rickman. My dear friend Mr. Monroe, who is appointed minister extraordinary to France, takes charge of this to be delivered to Mr. Estée, banker in Paris, to be forwarded to you. I arrived in Baltimore, 30th of October and you can have no idea of the agitation which my arrival occasioned. From New Hampshire to Georgia, an extent of 1500 miles, every newspaper was filled with applause or abuse. My property in this country has been taken care of by my friends and is now worth £6,000 sterling, which put in the funds will bring about 400 sterling a year. Remember me in affection and friendship to your wife and family and in the circle of your friends, Thomas Payne. A man in those days worth $30,000 was not a pauper. That amount would bring an income of at least $2,000. $2,000 then would be fully equal to $5,000 now. On the 12th of July 1809 the year in which he died, Mr. Payne made his will. From this instrument we learn that he was the owner of a valuable farm within 20 miles of New York. He was also owner of 30 shares in the New York Phoenix Insurance Company, worth upward of $1,500, besides this some personal property and ready money. By his will he gave to Walter Morton and Thomas Addis Emmett, a brother of Robert Emmett, $200 each and $100 to the widow of Elihu Palmer. Is it possible that this will was made by a pauper, by a destitute outcast, by a man who suffered for the ordinary necessities of life? But suppose for the sake of argument that he was poor and that he died a beggar. Does that tend to show that the Bible is an inspired book and that Calvin did not burn Servetus? Do you really regard poverty as a crime? If Payne had died a millionaire would Christians have accepted his religious opinions? If Payne had drank nothing but cold water would Christians have repudiated the five cardinal points of Calvinism? Does an argument depend for its force upon the pecuniary condition of the person making it? As a matter of fact most reformers, most men and women of genius have been acquainted with poverty. Beneath a covering of rags have been found some of the tenderest and bravest hearts. Owing to the attitude of the churches the last fifteen hundred years truth-telling has not been a very lucrative business. As a rule hypocrisy has worn the robes and honesty the rags. That day is passing away. You cannot now answer a man by pointing at the holes in his coat. Thomas Payne attacked the church when it was powerful, when it had what is called honors to bestow, when it was the keeper of the public conscience, when it was strong and cruel. The church waited till he was dead then attacked his reputation and his clothes. Once upon a time a donkey kicked a lion. The lion was dead. You just don't know how happy I am tonight that justice so long delayed at last is going to be done. And to see so many splendid-looking people come here out of deference to the memory of Thomas Payne. I am glad to be here. The next thing is, did Thomas Payne live the life of a drunken beast and did he die a drunken cowardly and beastly death? Well, we will see. Upon you rests the burden of substantiating these infamous charges. The Christians have, I suppose, produced the best evidence in their possession and that evidence I will now proceed to examine. Their first witness is Grant Thorburn. He made three charges against Thomas Payne. One, that his wife obtained a divorce from him in England for cruelty and neglect. Two, that he was a defaulter and fled from England to America. Three, that he was a drunkard. These three charges stand upon the same evidence. The word of Grant Thorburn. If they are not all true, Mr. Thorburn stands impeached. The charge that Mrs. Payne obtained a divorce on account of the cruelty and neglect of her husband is utterly false. There is no such record in the world and never was. Payne and his wife separated by mutual consent. Each respected the other. They remained friends. This charge is without any foundation. In fact, I challenged the Christian world to produce the record of this decree of divorce. According to Mr. Thorburn, it was granted in England. In that country public records are kept of all such degrees. I will give one thousand dollars if they will produce a decree showing that it was given on account of cruelty or admit that Mr. Thorburn was mistaken. Thomas Payne was a just man. Although separated from his wife, he always spoke of her with tenderness and respect and frequently lent her money without letting her know the source from whence it came. Was this the conduct of a drunken beast? The next is that he was a defaulter and fled from England to America. As I told you in the first place, he was an excisement. If he was a defaulter, that fact is upon the records of Great Britain. I will give one thousand in gold to any man who will show, by the records of England, that he was a defaulter of a single solitary scent. Let us bring these gentlemen to Limerick. And they charged that he was a drunkard. That is another falsehood. He drank liquor in his day, as did the preachers. It was no unusual thing for a preacher going home to stop at a tavern and take a drink of hot rum with a deacon, and it was no unusual thing for the deacon to help the preacher home. You have no idea how they loved the sacrament in those days. They had communion pretty much all the time. Thorburn says that in 1802 pain was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep. Can anyone believe this to be a true account of the personal appearance of Mr. Payne in 1802? He had just returned from France. He had been welcomed home by Thomas Jefferson, who had said that he was entitled to the slavery American. In 1802 Mr. Payne was honored with a public dinner in the city of New York. He was called upon and treated with kindness and respect by such men as DeWitt Clinton. In 1806 Mr. Payne wrote a letter to Andrew A. Dean upon the subject of religion. Read that letter, and then say that the writer of it was an old remnant of mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep. Search the list issue to the last and you will find nothing superior to this letter. In 1803 Mr. Payne wrote a letter of considerable length and of great force to his friend Samuel Adams. Such letters are not written by drunken beast nor by remnants of old mortality nor by drunkards. It was about the same time that he wrote his remarks on Robert Hall's sermons. These remarks were not written by a clear-headed and thoughtful man. In 1804 he published an essay on the invasion of England and a treatise on gunboats full of valuable maritime information. In 1805 a treatise on yellow fever suggesting modes of prevention. In short he was an industrious and thoughtful man. He sympathised with the poor and oppressed of all lands. He looked upon monarchy as a species of slavery. He had the goodness to attack that form of government. He regarded the religion of his day as a kind of mental slavery. He had the courage to give his reasons for his opinion. His reasons filled the churches with hatred. Instead of answering his arguments they attacked him. Men who were not fit to blacken his shoes blackened his character. There is too much religious cant in the statement of Dr. Thorburn. He exhibits too much anxiety to tell what Grant Thorburn said to Thomas Payne. He names Thomas Jefferson as one of the disreputable men who welcome pain with open arms. The testimony of a man who regarded Thomas Jefferson as a disreputable person as to the character of anybody is utterly without value. Now Grant Thorburn this gentleman who was four feet and a half high weighed 98 pounds three and one half ounces says that he used to sit nights at Carvers in New York City with Thomas Payne. Mrs. Ferguson the daughter of William Carver says that she knew Thorburn when she saw him but that she never saw him in her father's house. The denial of Mrs. Ferguson enraged Thorburn and he at once wrote a few falsehoods about her. Thereupon a suit was commenced by Mrs. Ferguson and her husband against her and Fanshawe the publisher of the libel. Thorburn ran away to Connecticut. Fanshawe wrote him for evidence of what he had written. Thorburn replied that what he had written about Mrs. Ferguson could not be proved. Fanshawe then settled with the Ferguson's paying them the amount demanded. In 1859 the Ferguson's lived at 148 Dwayne Street, New York. In the commercial advertiser of New York in 1830 appeared an acknowledgement of this same little Grant Thorburn that he did on the 22nd of August 1830 at half past six in the morning take four bottles of cider from the cellar of Mr. Comstock. Mr. Comstock says that Thorburn was arrested and that when brought before him he pleaded guilty and threw himself upon his Comstock's mercy. The Philadelphia Trapped Society gave Thorburn $100 to write his recollections of Thomas Ferguson. Let us dispose of this four feet and a half of wretch. In October 1877 I received the following letter from James Parton. Newport, Massachusetts October 27, 1877 my dear sir touching Grant Thorburn I personally knew him to have been a liar. At the age of 92 he copied with trembling hand a piece from a newspaper and brought it to the office his own. It was I who received it and detected the deliberate forgery. James Parton. So much for Grant Thorburn. In my judgment the testimony of Mr. Thorburn should be thrown aside as utterly unworthy of belief. The next witness is the Reverend J.D. Wickham, doctor of divinity who tells what an elder in his church said this elder said that pain passed his last days on his farm at a military female attendant. This is not true. He did not pass his last days at New Rochelle. Consequently this pious elder did not see him during his last days at that place. Upon this elder we prove an alibi. Mr. Pain passed his last days in the city of New York in a house upon Columbia Street. The story of Reverend J.D. Wickham, doctor of divinity is simply false. The next competent false witness was the Reverend Charles Hawley, doctor of divinity who proceeds to state that the story of the Reverend J.D. Wickham, doctor of divinity is corroborated by older citizens of New Rochelle. The names of these ancient residents are withheld. According to these unknown witnesses the account given by the deceased elder was entirely correct but as the particulars of Mr. Pain's conduct were too loathsome to be described in print we are left entirely in the dark to what he really did. While at New Rochelle Mr. Pain lived with Mr. Purdy, Mr. Dean, with Captain Pelton and with Mr. Staples. It is worthy of note that all of these gentlemen give the lie direct to the statements of older residents and ancient citizens spoken of by the Reverend Charles Hawley doctor of divinity and leave him with the loathsome particulars existing only in his own mind. The next gentleman brought upon the stand is W. H. Ladd who quotes from the memoirs of Stephen Grellett. This gentleman also has the misfortune to be dead. According to his account Mr. Pain made his recantation to a servant girl of his by the name of Mary Roscoe. Mr. Pain uttered the wish that all who read his book had burned it. I believe there is a mistake in the name of this girl. Her name was probably Mary Hinsdale as it was once claimed that Pain was the same remark to her. These are the witnesses of the church and the only ones you bring forward to support your charge that Thomas Pain lived a drunken and beastly life and died a drunken, cowardly and beastly death. All these colonies are found in a life of Pain by James Cheatham, the convicted libeler already referred to. Mr. Cheatham was an enemy of the man whose life he pretended to write. In order to show you the estimation in which this libeler was held by Mr. Pain, I will give you a copy of a letter that throws light upon this point. October 27th, 1807 Mr. Cheatham, unless you make a public apology for the abuse and falsehood in your paper of Tuesday October 27th respecting me, I will prosecute you for lying Thomas Pain. In another letter speaking of this same man, Mr. Pain says, if an unprincipled libeler cannot be reformed he can be punished. Cheatham has been so long in the habit of giving false information that truth is to him like a foreign language. Mr. Cheatham wrote the life of Mr. Pain to gratify his malice and to support religion. He was prosecuted for libel, was convicted and fined. Yet the life of Pain written by this liar is referred to by the Christian world as the highest authority. As to the personal habits of Mr. Pain we have the testimony of William Carver with whom he lived, of Mr. Jarvis, the artist with whom he lived, of Mr. Purdy who was a tenant of Pain's, of Mr. Byer with whom he was intimate, of Thomas Nixon and Captain Daniel Pelton both of whom knew him well, of Amasa Woodsworth who was with him when he died, of John Fellows who boarded at the same house, of James Wilburn with whom he boarded, of B. F. Dickens, a lawyer who was well acquainted with him and called upon him during his last illness, of Walter Morton, president of the Phoenix Insurance Company, of Cleo Rickman who had known him for many years, of Willett and Elias Hicks Quakers who knew him intimately and well, of Judge H. H. Margary, Elihu Palmer and many others. All these testified to the fact that Mr. Pain was a temperate man. In those days nearly everybody used spiritual liquors. Pain was not an exception but he did not drink to excess. Mr. Lovett who kept the city hotel where Pain stopped in a note to Caleb Bingham declared that Pain drank less than any border he had. Against all this evidence Christians produced a story of Grant Thorburn, the story of Reverend J. D. Wickham, that an elder in his church told him was a drunkard, corroborated by the Reverend Charles Hawley and an extract from Lossing's history to the same effect. The evidence is overwhelmingly against them. Will you have the fairness to admit it? Their witnesses are merely the repeaters of falsehoods of James Cheatham, the convicted libeler. After all drinking is not as bad as lying. An honest drunkard is better than a calumniator of the dead. A remnant of old mortality, drunk, bloated, and half asleep, is better than a perfectly sober defender of human slavery. To become drunk is a virtue compared with stealing a babe from the breast of its mother. Drunkenness is one of the Beatitudes compared with editing a religious paper devoted to the defense of slavery upon the ground that it is a divine institution. Do you think that Pain was a drunken beast when he wrote Common Sense, a pamphlet that aroused three millions of people as people were never aroused by words before? Was he a drunken beast when he wrote The Crisis? Was it to a drunken beast that the following letter was addressed? Rocky Hill, September 10th, 1783 I have learned since I have been at this place that you are at Bordentown. Whether for the sake of retirement or economy, I know not. Be it for either or both or whatever it may, if you will come to this place and partake with me, I shall be exceedingly happy to see you at it. Your presence may remind Congress of your past services to this country, and if it is in my power to impress them, command my best exertions with freedom as they will be rendered cheerfully by one who entertains a lively sense of the importance of your works, and who with much pleasure describes himself your sincere friend, George Washington. Do you think that Paine was a drunken beast when the following letters were received by him? You express a wish in your letter to return to America in a national ship. Mr. Dawson, who brings over the treaty, and who will present you with this letter, is charged with orders to the captain of the Maryland to receive and accommodate your back, if you can be ready to receive such a short warning. You will in general find us return to sentiments worthy of former times. In these it will be your glory to have steadily labored and with as much effect as any man living. That you may live long to continue your useful labors and reap the reward in the thankfulness of nations is my sincere prayer, except the assurances of my highest eem and affectionate attachment. Thomas Jefferson. There has been very generally propagated through the continent that I wrote the pamphlet Common Sense. I could not have written anything in so manly and striking a style. John Adams. A few more such flaming arguments as were exhibited at Falmouth and Norfolk, added to the sound doctrine an unanswerable reasoning contained in the pamphlet Common Sense will not leave numbers at a loss to decide on the propriety of a separation. George Washington. It is not necessary for me to tell you how much all your countrymen I speak of the great mass of the people are interested in your welfare. They have not forgotten the history of their own revolution and the difficult scenes through which they passed. Nor do they review it several stages without reviving in their bosoms a due sensibility of the merits of those who serve them in that great and arduous conflict. The crime of ingratitude has not yet stained and I trust never will stain our national character. You are considered by them as not only having rendered important services in our revolution but as being on a more extensive scale the friend of human right and a distinguished and able advocate in favor of public liberty. To the welfare of Thomas Paine the Americans are not nor can they be indifferent. James Monroe. No writer has exceeded pain in ease and familiarity of style in perspicuity of expression, happiness of elucidation and in simple and unassuming language. Thomas Jefferson. Was it in consideration of the services of a drunken beast that the legislature of Pennsylvania presented Thomas Paine with five hundred pounds sterling? Did the state of New York feel indebted to a drunken beast and confer upon Thomas Paine an estate of several hundred acres? Did the Congress of the United States thank him for his services because he had lived a drunken and beastly life? Was he elected a member of the French convention because he was a drunken beast? Was it the act of a drunken beast to put his own life in jeopardy against the death of the king? Was it because he was a drunken beast that he opposed the reign of terror that he endeavored to stop the shedding of blood and did all in his power to protect even his own enemies? Do the following extracts sound like the words of a drunken beast? I believe in the equality of man and I believe that religious duties consist in doing justice, loving mercy and endeavouring to make our fellow creatures happy. My own mind is my own church. It is necessary to the happiness of man that he be mentally faithful to himself. Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system. The work of God is the creation which we behold. The age of ignorance commenced with the Christian system. It is with a pious fraud as with a bad action. It begets a calamitous necessity of going on. To read the Bible without horror we must undo everything that is tender, sympathizing and benevolent in the heart of man. The man does not exist who can say I have persecuted him or that I have in any case returned evil for evil. Of all the tyrants that afflict mankind, tyranny and religion is the worst. The belief in a cruel God makes a cruel man. My own opinion is that those whose lives have been spent in doing good and endeavouring to make their fellow mortals happy will be happy hereafter. The intellectual part of religion is a private affair between every man and his maker and in which no third party has any right to interfere. The practical part consists in doing good to each other. No man ought to make a living by religion. One person cannot act religion for another. Every person must act for himself. One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests. Let us propagate morality unfettered by superstition. God is the power or first cause, nature is the law and matter is the subject acted upon. I believe in one God and no more and I hope for happiness beyond this life. The key of happiness is not in the keeping of any sect, nor ought the road to it to be obstructed by any. My religion and the whole of it is the fear and love of the deity and universal philanthropy. I have yet I believe some years in store for I have a good state of health and a happy mind. I take care of both by nourishing the first with temperance and the latter with abundance. He lives immured within the Bastille of a word. How perfectly that sentence describes the Orthodox. The Bastille in which they are immured is the word Calvinism. Man has no property in man. The world is my country to do good my religion. I ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast. Man has no property in man. What a splendid motto that would make for the religious newspapers of this country thirty years ago. I ask again whether these splendid utterances came from the lips of a drunken beast. Only a little while ago, two or three days, I read a report of an address made by Bishop Donne, an Episcopal Bishop in Apostolic Succession, regular line from Jesus Christ down to Bishop Donne. The bishop was making a speech to young preachers, the sprouts, the theological buds. He took it upon him to advise them all against early marriages. Let us look at it. Do you believe there is any duty that man owes to God that will prevent a man marrying the woman he loves? Is there some duty that I owe to the clouds that will prevent me from marrying some good sweet woman? Now just think of that. I tell you, young man, you marry as soon as you can find her and support her. I had rather have one woman that I know than any amount of gods that I am not acquainted with. If there is any revelation from God to man, a good woman is the best revelation he has ever made, and I will admit that that revelation was inspired. Now on the subject of marriage let me offset the speech of Bishop Donne by a word from Wretched Infidel. Though I appear a sorry wanderer, the marriage state has not a sincere friend than I. It is the harbour of human life and is with respect to the things of this world what the next world is to this. It is home, and that one word conveys more than any other word can express for a few years we may glide along the tide of a single life, but it is a tide that flows but once and what is still worse it ebbs faster than it flows and leaves many a hapless voyager ground. I am one, you see, that has experienced the fall I am describing. I have lost my tide. It passed by while every throb of my heart was on the wing for the salvation of America and I have now as contentedly as I can made on that shore that has the solitary resemblance of home. I just want you to know what this dreadful infidel thought of home. I just wanted you to know what Thomas Payne thought of home, then here is another letter that Thomas Payne wrote to Congress on the twenty-first day of January, 1808, and I wanted you to know those too. It is only a short one. To the honourable Senate the purport of this address is to state a claim I feel myself entitled to make on the United States, leaving it to their representatives in Congress to decide on its worth and its merits. The case is as follows. Toward the latter end of the year 1780 the Continental Money had become depreciated, the paper dollar being there not more than a cent and it seemed next to impossible to continue the war. As the United States was then in France it became necessary to make France acquainted with our real situation. I therefore drew up a letter to the Count de Virgin stating undisguisedly the whole case and concluding with a request whether France could not, either as a subsidy or a loan supply the United States with a million pounds sterling and continue that supply annually during the war. I showed this letter to Mr. Morbois, Secretary of the French Minister. My remark upon it was that a million cent out of the nation exhausted it more than ten millions spent in it. I then showed it to Mr. Ralph Isid member of Congress from South Carolina. He borrowed the letter of me and said we will endeavour to do something about it in Congress. Accordingly Congress then appointed John A. Lawrence to go to France and make representation for the purpose of obtaining assistance. Colonel Lawrence wished to decline the mission and asked that Congress appoint Colonel Hamilton, who did not choose to do it. Colonel Lawrence then came and stated the case to me and said that he was well enough acquainted with the military difficulties of the army but he was not acquainted with political affairs or with the resources of the country to undertake such a mission. Said he, if you will go with me I will accept the mission. This I agreed to do and did do. We sailed from Boston in the Alliance Frigate, February 1781 and arrived in France in the beginning of March. The aid obtained from France was six millions of leers as at present and ten millions as alone, borrowed in Holland on the security of France. We sailed from Brest in the French Frigate Resolue the 1st of June and arrived at Boston on the 25th of August, bringing with us two millions and a half in silver and conveying a chip and a brig laden with clothing and military stores. The money was transported with sixteen ox teams to the National Bank at Philadelphia which enabled our army to move to York Town to attack in conjunction with the French Army under Rochambeau the British Army under Cornwallis. As I never had a single cent for these services I felt myself entitled as the country is now in a state of prosperity to state the case to Congress. As to my political works beginning with the pamphlet Common Sense published the beginning of January 1776 which awakened America to a declaration of independence as the President and Vice President both know, as they were works done from principle I cannot dishonor that principle by ever asking any reward for them. The country has been benefited by them and I make myself happy in the knowledge of that benefit. It is however proper for me to add that the mere independence of America were it to have been followed by a system of government modeled after the corrupt system of the English would not have interested me with the unabated ardor it did. It was to bring forward and establish a representative system of government. As the work itself will show that was the leading principle with me in writing that work and all my other works during the progress of the revolution and I followed the same principle in writing in English the rights of man. After the failure of the 5% duty recommended by Congress to pay the interest of the loan to be approved to Chancellor Livingston, then Minister for Foreign Affairs and Robert Morris Minister of Finance and proposed a method for getting over the difficulty at once which was by adding a continental legislature which should be empowered to make laws for the whole union instead of recommending them. So the method proposed met with their future probation. I held myself in reserve to take a step up whenever a direct occasion occurred. In a conversation with Governor Clinton of New York now Vice President it was judged that for the purpose of my going fully into the subject and to prevent any misconstruction of my motive or object it would be best that I received nothing from Congress but to leave it to the states individually to make the what acknowledgement they pleased. The state of New York presented me with a farm which since my return to America I have found it necessary to sell and the state of Pennsylvania but none of the states to the east of New York or to the south of Pennsylvania have made me the least acknowledgement. They had received benefits from me which they accepted and there the matter ended. This story will not tell well in history. All the civilized world knows that I have been of great service to the United States and have generously given away that which would easily have made me a fortune. I much question if an instance is to be found in ancient or modern times of a man who had no personal interest in the case to take up that of the establishment of a representative government and who sought neither place nor office after it was established that pursued the same undeviating principles that I had for more than thirty years and that in spite of dangers, difficulties and inconveniences of which I have had my share. Thomas Paine An old man in Pennsylvania told me once that his father hired an old revolutionary soldier by the name of Thomas Martin to work for him. Martin was then quite an old man and there was an old Presbyterian preacher used to come by there by the name of Crawford and he sat down by the fire and he got to talking one night among other things about Thomas Paine, what a wretched, infamous dog he was. And while he was in the midst of this conversation the old soldier rose from the fireplace and he walked over the preacher and he said to him, did you ever see Thomas Paine? No. Well, he says, I have. I saw him at Valley Forge. I heard red at the head of every regiment and company the letters of Thomas Paine. I heard them read the crisis and I saw Thomas Paine writing on the head of a drum sitting at the Bivouac fire those simple words that inspired every Patriot's bosom and I want to tell you, Mr. Preacher, that Thomas Paine did more for liberty than any priest that ever lived in this world. Yet they say he was afraid to die. Afraid of what? Is there any God in heaven that hates a Patriot? If there is, Thomas Paine ought to be afraid to die. Is there any God that would damn a man for helping to free three millions of people? If Thomas Paine was in hell tonight and could get God's attention long enough to point him to the old banner of the stars floating over America God would have to let him out. What would he be afraid of? Had he ever burned anybody? No. Had he ever put anybody in the Inquisition? No. Ever put the thumb screw on anybody? No. Ever put anybody in prison so that some poor wife and mother would come and hold her little babe up at the grated window that the man bound to the floor might get one glimpse of his blue-eyed babe? Did he ever do that? Did he ever light a faggot? Did he ever tear human flesh? Why, what had he to be afraid of? He had helped to make the world free. He had helped create the only Republic then on earth. What was he afraid of? Was God a Tory? It won't do. One would think from the persistence with which the Orthodox have charged for the last seventy years that Thomas Paine recanted that there must be some evidence of some kind to support these charges. Even with my ideas of the average honour of the believers in superstition, the average truthfulness of the disciples of fear, I did not believe that all those infamies rested solely upon poorly attested falsehoods. I had charity enough to suppose that something had been said or done by Thomas Paine capable of being tortured into a foundation of all these calamities. What crime had Thomas Paine committed that he should have feared to die? The only answer you can give is that he denied the inspiration of the scriptures. If that is crime, the civilized world is filled with criminals. The pioneers of human thought, the intellectual leaders of this world, the foremost men in every science, the kings of literature and art, those who stand in the front of investigation, the men who are civilizing and elevating kind are all unbelievers in the ignorant dogma of inspiration. Why should we think Thomas Paine was afraid to die? And why should the American people malign the memory of that great man? He was the first to advocate the separation from the mother country. He was the first to write these words, the United States of America. Think of maligning that man. He was the first to lift his voice against human slavery. And while hundreds and thousands of ministers all over the United States not only believed in slavery but bought and sold women and babes in the name of Jesus Christ, this infidel, this wretch who was now burning in the flames of hell, lifted his voice against human slavery and said, it is robbery and a slave holder is a thief. The whipper of woman is a barbarian. The seller of a child is a savage. No wonder that the thieving hypocrite of his day hated him. I have no love for any man who ever pretended to own a human being. I have no love for a man that would sell a babe from the mother's throbbing, heaving, agonized breast. I have no respect for a man who considered a lash on the naked back as a legal tender for labor so write it down. Thomas Paine was the first great abolitionist of America. Now let me tell you another thing. He was the first man to raise his voice for the abolition of the death penalty in the French Convention. What more did he do? He was the first to suggest a federal constitution for the United States. He saw that the old Articles of Confederation were nothing, that he loved water and chains of mist and he said, we want a federal constitution so that when you pass a law raising five percent you can make the states pay it. Let us give him his due. What were all these preachers doing at that time? He hated superstition. He loved the truth. He hated tyranny. He loved liberty. He was the friend of the human world. He lived a brave and thoughtful life. He was a good and true and generous man and he died as he lived. Like a great and peaceful river with green and shaded banks, without a murmur, without a ripple, he flowed into the waveless ocean of eternal peace. I love him. I love every man who gave me or helped to give me the liberty and joy tonight. I love every man who helped me put our flag in heaven. I love every man who has lifted his voice in any age for liberty, for a chainless body in a fetterless brain. I love every man who is given to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. I love every man who has thought more of principle than he has of position. I love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they might do something for mankind. And for that reason I love Thomas Paine. I thank you all, ladies and gentlemen, every one, every one, for the attention you have given me this evening. End of Ingersoll's lecture on Thomas Paine, Part 2. Recorded for you by Ted DeLorm in Fort Mill, South Carolina during August 2008. Chapter 3 This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Lectures of Colonel Robert Green Ingersoll, Volume 2 Ingersoll's lecture on liberty of man, woman, and child. Ladies and gentlemen, in my judgment slavery is the child of ignorance. Liberty is born of intelligence. Only a few years ago there was a great awakening in the human mind. Men began to inquire by what right does a crowned robber make me work for him? The man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others said by what right does a robed priest rob me? That man was called an infidel. And whenever he asked a question of that kind, the clergy protested. When they found that the earth was round, the clergy protested. When they found that the stars were not made out of the scraps that were left over on the sixth day of creation but were really great shining wheeling worlds, the clergy protested and said, when is this spirit of investigation to stop? They said then and they say now that it is dangerous for the mind of man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea there is room for every sail. In the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing. And the man who does not think is a slave and does not do his duty to his fellow men. For one, I expect to do my own thinking and I will take my own oath this minute that I will express what thoughts I have honestly and sincerely. I am the slave of no man and of no organization. I stand under the blue sky and the stars the infinite flag of nature the pier of every human being. Standing as I do in the presence of the unknown I have the same right to guess as though I have been through five theological seminaries. I have as much interest in the great absorbing questions of origin and destiny as though I had D.D. L.L.D. at the end of my name. All I claim all I plead is simple liberty of thought that is all. I do not pretend to tell what is true and all the truth I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought or that I have descended to the depths of things. I simply claim that what idea I have I have a right to express and any man that denies it to me is an intellectual thief and robber that is all. I say take those chains off from the human soul I say break these orthodox fetters and if there are wings to the spirit let them be spread that is all I say and I ask you if I have not the same right to think that any other human has. If I have no right to think why I such a thing as a thinker why have I a brain and if I have no right to think who has. If I have lost my right Mr. Smith where do you find yours if I have no right have three or four men or three hundred or four hundred who get together and sign a card and build a house and put a steeple on it with a bell in it have they any more right to think than they had before that is the question and I am sick of the whip and lash in the region of mind and intellect and I say to these men let us alone do your own thinking express your own thoughts and I want to say tonight that I claim no right that I am not willing to give to every other human being beneath the stars none whatever and I will fight tonight for the right of those who disagree with me to express their thoughts just as soon as I will fight for my own right to express mine in the good old times our fathers had an idea that they could make people believe to suit them our ancestors in the ages that are gone really believed that by force you could convince a man you cannot change the conclusion of the brain by force but I will tell you what you can do by force and what you have done by force you can make hypocrites by the million you can make a man say that he has changed his mind but he remains of the same opinion still put fetters all over him crush his feet in iron boots lash him to the stock burn him if you please but his ashes are of the same opinion still I say our fathers in the good old times and the best thing I can say about them is they are dead they had an idea they could force men to think their way and do you know that idea is still prevalent even in this country do you know they think they can make a man think their way if they say we will not trade with that man we won't vote for that man we won't hire him if he is a lawyer we will die before we take his medicine if he is a doctor we won't invite him we will socially ostracize him he must come to our church he must think our way or he is not a gentleman there is much of that even in this blessed country not accepting the city of albany itself now in the old times of which I have spoken they said we can make all men think alike all the mechanical ingenuity of this earth cannot make two clocks run alike and how are you going to make millions of people of different quantities and qualities and amount of brain clad in this living robe of passionate flesh how are you going to make millions of them think alike if the infinite god if there is one who made us wished us to think alike why did he give a spoon full of brains to one man and a bushel to another why is it that we have all degrees of humanity from idiot to the genius if it was intended that all should think alike I say our fathers concluded they would do this by force and I used to read in books how they persecuted mankind and do you know I never appreciated it I did not I read it but it did not burn itself as it were into my very soul what infamies had been committed in the name of religion and I never fully appreciated it until a little while ago I saw the iron arguments our fathers used to use I tell you the reason we are through that is because we have better brains than our fathers had since that day we have become intellectually developed and there is more real brain and real good sense in the world today than in any other period of its history and that is the reason we have more liberty that is the reason we have more kindness but I say I saw these iron arguments our fathers used to use I saw here the thumb screw two little innocent looking pieces of iron armed on the inner surface with protuberances to prevent their slipping and when some man denied the efficacy of baptism or maybe said I do not believe that the whale ever swallowed a man to keep him from drowning then they put these pieces of iron upon his thumb and there was a screw at each end and then in the name of love and forgiveness they began screwing these pieces of iron together a great many men they commenced would say I recant I expect I would have been one of them I would have said now you just stop that I will admit anything on earth that you want I will admit there is one God or a million one hell or a billion suit yourselves but stop that but I want to say the thumb screw having got out of the way I am going to have my say there was now and then some man who wouldn't turn Judas Iscariot to his own soul there was now and then a man willing to die for his conviction and if it were not for such men we would be savages tonight had it not been for a few brave and heroic souls in every age we would have been naked savages this moment with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our naked breasts dancing around a dried snake fetish and I tonight thank every good and noble man who stood up in the face of opposition and hatred and death for what he believed to be right and then they screwed this thumb screw down as far as they could and threw him into some dungeon where in throbbing misery and the darkness of night he dreams of the damned but that was done in the name of universal love I saw there at the same time what they called the color of torture imagine a circle of iron and on the inside of that more than a hundred points as sharp as needles this being fastened upon the throat the sufferer could not sit down he could not walk he could not stir without being punctured by those needles and in a little while the throat would begin to swell and finally suffocation would end the agonies of that man when maybe the only crime he had committed was to say with tears upon his sublime cheeks I do not believe that God the father of us all will damn to eternal punishment any of the children of men think of it and I saw there at the same time another instrument called the scavenger's daughter which resembles a pair of shears with handles where handles ought to be but at the points as well and just above the pivot that fastens the blades a circle of iron through which the hands would be placed into the lower circles the feet and into the center circle the head would be pushed and in that position he would be thrown prone upon the earth and kept there until the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that insanity and death would end his pain and that was done in the name of whosoever smites the upon one cheek turn him the other also think of it and I saw also the rack with the windlass and chains upon which the sufferer was laid about his ankles were fastened chains and about his wrists also and then priests began turning this windlass and they kept turning until the ankles the shoulders and the wrists were all dislocated and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony and they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse what for to save his life yes what for in mercy no simply that they might preserve his life that they might rack him once again and this was done recollect it it was done in the name of civilization it was done in the name of law and order it was done in the name of morality it was done in the name of religion it was done in the name of God sometimes when I get to reading about it and when I get to thinking about it it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with a tear-filled eye toward home and native land as though my nails had been torn from my hands and into my throat the sharp needles had been thrust as though my feet had been crushed in iron boots as though I had been chained in the cells of the inquisition and had watched and waited in the interminable darkness to hear the words of release as though I had been taken from my fireside from my wife and children and taken to the public square chained and faggots had been piled around me as though the flames had played around my limbs and scorched the sight from my eyes as though my ashes had been scattered to the forewinds by the hands of hatred as though I had stood upon the scaffold and felt the glittering axe fall upon me and while I feel and see all this I swear that while I live I will do what little I can to augment the liberty of man, woman and child my friends it is all a question of sense it is all a question of honesty if there is a man in this house who is not willing to give to everybody else what he claims for himself he is just so much nearer to the barbarian than I am it is a simple question of honesty and the man who is not willing to give to every other human being the same intellectual rights he claims himself is a rascal and you know it it is a simple question I say of intellectual development of honesty and I want to say it now so you will see it you show me the narrow contracted man you show me the man who claims everything for himself and leaves nothing for others and that man has got a distorted and deformed brain that is the matter with him he has no sense not a bit of everything man has made for his use and for his convenience I saw all the models of all the watercraft from the dugout in which floated a naked savage one of our ancestors a naked savage with teeth two inches long with a spoon full of brains in the back of his head I saw the watercraft of the world from that dugout up to a man of war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas from that dugout to the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of New York through three thousand miles of billows with a compass like a conscience that does not mist throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to the other I saw at the same time the weapons that man has made from a rude club such as was grasped by that savage when he crawled from his den from his hole in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner from that club to the boomerang to the sword to the crossbow to the blunder bus to the flint lock to the cap lock to the needle gun up to the cannon cast by Krupp capable of hurling a ball of two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel I saw too the armor from the turtle shell that our ancestors lashed upon his skin to fight for his country to the skin of the porcupine with the quills all bristling which he pulled over his orthodox head to defend himself from his enemies I mean of course the orthodox head of that day up to the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages capable of resisting the edge of the sword and the point of the spear up to the iron clad to the monitor completely clad in steel capable only a few years ago defying the navies of the globe I saw at the same time the musical instruments from the tom-tom which is a hoop with a couple strings of rawhide drawn across it from that tom-tom up to the instruments we have today which make the common air blossom with melody I saw too the paintings from the dob of yellow mud up to the pieces which adorn the galleries of the world and the sculpture from the rude gods with six legs and half a dozen arms and the rose of ears up to the sculpture of now where in the marvellous clad with such loveliness that it seems almost a sacrilege to touch it and in addition I saw their ideas of books books written upon the skins of wild beasts books written upon shoulder blades of sheep books written upon leaves upon bark up to the splendid volumes that adorn the libraries of our time when I think of libraries I think of the remark of Plato the house that has a library in it has a soul I saw there all these things and also the implements of agriculture from a crooked stick up to the plow which makes it possible for man to cultivate the soil without an ignoramus I saw at the same time a row of skulls from the lowest skull that has ever been found skulls from the central portion of Africa skulls from the bushmen of Australia up to the best skulls of the last generation and I noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there is between the products of those skulls and I said to myself it is all a question of intellectual development it is a question of brain and sinew I noticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that there was between that dugout and that man of war and that steamship that skull was low it had not a forehead a quarter of an inch high but shortly after the skulls became doming and crowning and getting higher and grander the skull was a din in which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind and this skull was a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty and love so said I this is all a question of brain and anything that tends to develop intellectually mankind is the gospel we want now I want to be honest with you on our bright world no matter what I believe now let us be honest suppose a king if there was a king at the time this gentleman floated in the dugout and charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom suppose the king at that time if there was one and the priest if there was one had said that dugout is the best boat that ever can be built the pattern of that came from on high and who says he can improve it by putting a log or a stick in the bottom of it with a rag on the end is an infidel on a bright what in your judgment would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe that is a question suppose the king if there was one and the priest if there was one and I presume there was because it was a very ignorant age suppose they had said that tom-tom is the most miraculous instrument of music that any man can conceive of that is the kind of music they have in heaven an angel sitting upon the golden edge of a fleecy cloud playing upon that tom-tom became so enraptured so entranced with her own music that she dropped it and that is how we got it and any man that says that it can be improved and force strings and a bridge on it and getting some horse-hair and resin is no better than one of the weak and unregenerate I ask you what effect would that have had upon music I ask you on a bright if that course had been pursued would the human ears ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven that is the question and suppose the king if there was one and the priest had said that crooked stick is the best plow we can ever have invented the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream and that twisted straw is the nip-lu ultra of all twisted things and any man who says he can make an improvement we will twist him on a bright what in your judgment would have been the effect upon the cultural world now you see the people said we want better weapons with which to kill our enemies so the people said we want better plows the people said we want better music the people said we want better paintings and they said whoever will give us better plows and better arms and better paintings and better music we will give him honor crown him with glory we will robe him in the garments of wealth and every incentive has been held out to every human being to improve something in every direction and that is the reason the club is a canon that is the reason the dugout is a steamship that is the reason the daub is a painting and that is the reason that that piece of stone has finally become a glorified statue now then this fellow in the dugout had a religion that fellow was orthodox he had no doubt he was settled in his mind he did not wish to be insulted he wanted the bark of his soul to lie at the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun he wanted to hear the sales of old opinions flap against the mast of old creeds he wanted to see the joints open and gape as though thirsty for water and he said now don't disturb my opinions you'll get my mind unsettled I have got it all made up and I don't want to hear any infidelity either as far as I am concerned I want to be out on the high sea I want to take my chance with wind and wave and star and I'd rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot at any orthodox wharf of course I mean by orthodoxy all that don't agree with my doxy do you understand now this man had a religion that fellow believed in hell yes sir and he thought he would be happier in heaven if he could just lean over and see certain people that he disliked broiled that fellow has had a great many intellectual descendants it is an unhappy fact in nature that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual this fellow believed in the devil and his devil had a cloven hoof many people think I have the same kind of footing he had a long tail armed with a fiery dart and he breathed brimstone and do you know there has not been a patentable argument made on that devil for four thousand years that fellow believed that God was a tyrant that fellow believed that the earth was flat that fellow believed as I told you in a literal burning seething lake of fire and brimstone that is what he believed in that fellow too had his idea of politics and his idea was might makes right thousands of years before the world will believingly say right makes might all I ask is the same privilege of improving on that gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument the same right to improve upon his politics as upon his dugout that is all I ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction and that is all that is the only crime that I have committed that is all I say let us have a chance let us think and let each one express his thoughts let us become investigators not followers not cringers and crawlers if there is in heaven an infinite being he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and hypocrites honest unbelief will be a perfume in heaven when hypocrisy no matter however religious it may be outwardly will be a stench that is my doctrine that is all there is to it give every other human being all the chance you claim for yourself to keep your mind open to the voices of nature to new ideas put on your doctrine whenever you can that is my doctrine do you know we are improving all the time do you know that the most orthodox people in this town today 300 years ago would have been burned for heresy do you know some ministers who denounce me would have been in the inquisition themselves 200 years ago do you know where once they raised the bivouac fires of the army of progress the altars of the church glow today do you know that the church today occupies about the same ground that unbelievers did 100 years ago do you know that while they have followed this army of progress protesting and denouncing they have had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance but they have followed it in the men let me say in the valley the men in the swamps shouting to and cursing the pioneers on the hills the men upon whose forehead was the light of the coming dawn the coming day but they have advanced in spite of themselves they have advanced if they had not I would not speak here tonight if they had not not a solitary one of you a real and honest thought but we are advancing and we are beginning to hold all kinds of slavery and utter contempt do you know that and we are beginning to question wealth and power we are questioning all creeds and all dogmas we are not bowing down as we used to to a man simply because he is in the robe of a clergyman he is a king no, we are not bowing down simply because he is rich we used to worship the golden calves but we do not now the worst you can say of an American is he worships the gold of the calf not the calf and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction it no longer fills the ambition of a man to be emperor or king Napoleon was not satisfied with being emperor of the French he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head he wanted some evidence that he had something within his head so he wrote the life of Julius Caesar that he might become a member of the French Academy compare for instance in the German Empire King William and Bismarck King William is the one anointed of the most high as they claim one whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority compare him with Bismarck who towers an intellectual colossus above this man go into England and compare George Elliott with Queen Victoria Queen Victoria clothed in the garments given to her by blind fortune and by chance George Elliott robed in garments of glory woven in the loom of her own genius which does the world pay respect to I tell you we are advancing the pulpit does not do all the thinking the pews do it nearly all of it the world is advancing and we question the authority of those men who simply say it is so down upon your knees and admit it when I think of how much this world has suffered I am amazed how long our fathers were slaves I am amazed I just think of it this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty years no it has not it was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade up to that time her judge sitting upon the bench in the name of justice her priests occupying the pulpit in the name of universal love owned stock in slave ships and luxuriated in the profits of piracy and murder it was not until the year 1808 that the United States abolished the slave trade between this and other countries but preserved it as between the states it was not until the 28th day of August 1833 that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies and it was not until the first day of January 1863 that Abraham Lincoln wiped from our flag the stigma of disgrace Abraham Lincoln in my judgment the grandest man ever president of these United States and upon whose monument these words could truthfully be written here lies the only man in the history of the world who having been clothed with almost absolute power never abused it except on the side of mercy think I say how long we clung to the institution of human slavery how long lashes upon the naked back were the legal tender for labor performed think of it when the pulpit of this country deliberately and willfully changed the cross of Christ into the whipping post think of it and tell me then if I am right when I say this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in 50 years I hate with every drop of my blood every form of tyranny I hate every form of slavery I hate dictation I want something like liberty and what do I mean by that the right to do anything that does not interfere with the happiness of another physically liberty of thought includes the right to think right and the right to think wrong why because that is the means by which we arrive at the truth for if we knew the truth before we needn't think those men who mistake their ignorance for facts never do think you may say to me how far is it across this room I say 100 feet suppose it is 105 have I committed any crime I made the best guess I could you ask me about anything I examine it honestly and when I get through what should I tell you what I think or what you think what should I do there is a book put in my hands they say this is the Quran by inspiration read it I read it chapter 7 entitled the cow chapter 9 entitled the bee and so on I read it and when I get through with it suppose I think in my heart and in my brain I don't believe a word of it and you ask me what do you think of it now admitting that I live in turkey and have a chance to get an office what should I say now honor bright should I just make a clean breast of it and say upon my honor I don't believe it then is it right for you to say that fellow will steal that fellow is a dangerous man he is a robber now suppose I read the book called the Bible and I read it honor bright and when I get through with it I make up my mind that book was written by men and along comes the preacher with my church and he says did you read that book I did do you think it is divinely inspired I say to myself now if I say it is not they will never send me to congress from this district on earth now honor bright what ought I to do ought I to say I have read it I have been honest about it don't believe it now ought I to say that if that is a real transcript of my mind or ought I to commence hemming and hoeing and pretend that I do believe it and go away with the respect of that man hating myself for a cringing coward now which for my part I would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks and he will preserve his manhood I had rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer I think I will stand higher at the judgment day if there is one and stand with as good a chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man who sneaks through life pretending he believes what he does not I tell you one thing there is going to be one free fellow in this world I am going to say my say I tell you I am going to do it kindly I am going to do it distinctly but I am going to do it now if men have been slaves what about women women have been the slaves of slaves and that's a pretty hard position to occupy for life they have been the slaves of slaves and in my judgment it took millions of ages for women to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage I write here tonight I regard marriage as the holiest institution among men without the fireside there is no human advancement without the family relation there is no life worth living every good government is made up of good families the unit of government is family and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous I believe in marriage and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage let me say right here and I have thought a good deal about it let me say right here the grandest ambition that any man can possibly have is to so live and so improve himself in heart and brain as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man that is my idea and there is no success in life without it if you are the grand emperor of the world you had better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart and she the grand empress of yours the man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar his life has been a success I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage ladies the ornaments you bear upon your person tonight are but the souvenirs of your mother's bondage the chains around your bracelets clasped upon your wrists by the thrilling hand of love have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining glittering gold but nearly every religion has accounted for the devilment in this world by the crime of woman what a gallant thing that is and if it is true I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of trouble than to live in heaven I say that nearly every religion has accounted for all the trouble in this world by the crime of woman I read it in a book and I will say now that I cannot give the exact language my memory does not retain the words but I can give the substance I read in a book that the supreme being concluded to make a world and one man that he took some nothing and made a world and one man put this man in a garden but he noticed that he got lonesome he wandered around as if he was waiting for a train there was nothing to interest him no news no papers no politics no policy and as the devil had not yet made his appearance there was no chance for reconciliation not even for civil service reform well he would wander about this garden in this condition until finally the supreme being made up his mind to make him a companion and having used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world and one man he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with and so he caused a deep sleep to fall upon this man now understand me I didn't say this story is true after the sleep fell upon this man he took a rib or as the fringe would call it a cutlet out of this man and from that he made a woman considering the raw material I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed well after he got the woman done she was brought to the man not to see how she liked him but to see how he liked her he liked her and they started housekeeping and they were told of certain things they might do and one thing they could not do and of course they did it I would have done it in 15 minutes and I know it there wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from date and the limbs could have been full of clubs and then they were turned out of the park and an extra force was put on to keep them from getting back then devilment commenced the mumps and the measles and the whooping cough and the scarlet fever started in their race for man and they began to have the toothache the roses began to have thorns and snakes began to have poison teeth and people began to divide about religion and politics and the world has been full of trouble from that day to this now nearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same transaction it was written about four thousand years before the other but all commentators agree that the one that was written last was the original and that the one that was written first was copied from the one that was written last but I would advise you all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years in this other story the supreme Brahma made up his mind to make the world and man and woman and he made the world and he made the man and he made the woman and he put them on the island of Ceylon and according to the account it was the most beautiful island of which man can conceive such birds, such songs such flowers and such verdure and the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree a thousand Aeolian harps the supreme Brahma when he put them there said let them have a period of courtship for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage when I read that it was so much more beautiful and lofty than the other that I said to myself if either one of these stories ever turns out to be true I hope it will be this one then they had their courtship with the nightingale singing and the stars shining and the flowers blooming and they fell in love imagine the courtship no prospective fathers or mothers in law no prying and gossiping neighbors nobody to say young man how do you expect to support her nothing of that kind they were married by the supreme Brahma and he said to them remain here you must never leave this island well after a little while the man and his name was Amind and the woman's name was Haver and the man said to Haver I believe I'll look about a little and he went to the northern extremity of the island where there was a little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland and the devil who was always playing pranks with us got up a mirage and when he looked over to the mainland such hills and dales veils and dales such mountains crowned with silver such cataracts clad in robes of beauty did he see there that he went back and told Haver the country over there is a thousand times better than this let us migrate she like every other woman that ever lived said let well enough alone we have all we want let us stay here but he said no let us go so she followed him and when they came to this narrow neck of land he took her on his back like a gentleman and carried her over but the moment they got over they heard a crash and looking back discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea with the exception of now and then a rock had disappeared and there was not but rocks and sand and then a voice called out cursing them then it was the man spoke up and I have liked him ever since for it curse me but curse not her it was not her fault it was mine that's the kind of man to start a world with the supreme brahma said I will save her but not thee she spoke up out of her feelings of love out of a heart in which there was love enough to make all of her daughters rich in holy affection and said if thou wilt not spare him spare neither me I do not wish to live without him I love him then the supreme brahma said and I have liked him first rate ever since I read it I will spare you both and watch over you honor bright isn't that the better story and from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these miserable heathen had the heathen we are trying to convert we send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there and we send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen there and if we can convert the heathen why not convert those nearest home why not convert those we can get at why not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer but to show you the men we are trying to convert in this book it says man is strength woman is beauty man is courage woman is love when the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the one man the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy they are the men we are converting think of it I tell you when I read these things I begin to say love is not of any country nobility does not belong exclusively here and through all the ages there have been a few great and tender souls lifted far above their fellows now my friends it seems to me that the woman is the equal of the man she has all the rights I have and one more and that is the right to be protected that's my doctrine you are married try and make the woman you love happy try to make the man you love happy whoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake but whoever marries a woman so well that he says I will make her happy makes no mistake and so with the woman who says I will make him happy there is only one way to be happy and that is to make somebody else so and you can't be happy cross lots you have got to go to the regular turnpike road if there is any man I can ask it is the man who thinks he is the head of the family the man who thinks he is boss that fellow in the dugout used that word boss that was one of his favorite expressions that he was boss imagine a young man and a young woman courting walking out in the moonlight and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love as though the thorn touched her heart imagine them stopping there in the moonlight and starlight and song and saying now here let's settle whose boss tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous feeling a man who is boss who is going to govern his family and when he speaks let all the rest of them be still some mighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth do you know I dislike this man unspeakably and a cross man I hate above all things what right has he to murder the sunshine of the day what right has he to assassinate the joy of life where you go home you ought to feel the light there is in the house if it is in the night it will burst out of doors and windows and illuminate the darkness it is just as well to go home a ray of sunshine as an old sour cross curmudgeon who thinks he is the head of the family wise men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil they have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward they have been thinking about politics great and mighty questions have been engaging their minds they have bought calico at eight or six and want to sell it for seven think of the intellectual strain that must have been on a man and when he gets home everybody else in the house must look out for his comfort a woman who has only taken care of five or six children and one or two of them may be sick has been nursing them and singing to them and taking care of them and trying to make one yard of cloth do the work of two she of course is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon this great gentleman the head of the family I don't like him a bit end of part one of Ingersoll's lecture on liberty of man woman and child this will be concluded on the next file thank you for listening