“Even Now Are There Many Anti-Christs.”
Col. Ingersoll says: “He (Paine) knew that every abuse had been embalmed in scripture, that every outrage was in partnership with some holy text.” If such was really true every rascal, scoundrel and villain should carry a copy of the Bible. Do they? Are they in affinity with the Bible? Are they even friendly to it? Things that are in affinity with each other are drawn together. “A fellow feeling makes us very kind.” “By their fruits ye shall know them.” “Birds of a feather flock together.”
Before the Bible went to the Sandwich Islands Col. Ingersoll would have been hailed as a very proper object for a sumptuous feast. He would have acted wisely in making his [pg 230] last will before starting, but now, since that book has gone there which embalms every crime (?) he would find an asylum of safety in which to repose his weary limbs. How is this? Is every outrage in partnership with some holy text? If so, the Bible would be just one more reason for the continuance of cannibalism. The secret of Mr. Ingersoll's tirade upon the Bible may be accounted for when we measure the magnitude of his infidelity. It is no shallow sort of unbelief, but, on the contrary, it is deep seated, and one with the infidelity of his excelling predecessors. Ingersoll intends to have no superior in unbelief—you know he is ambitious. Let us give you a little speech that was made, by one of his particular friends and co-laborers in this unholy crusade, at Geneva, in 1868. Here it is:
“Brethren, I am come to announce unto you a new gospel, which must penetrate to the very ends of the world. This gospel admits of no half measures and hesitations. The old world must be destroyed and replaced by a new one. The Lie must be stamped out and give way to truth.
“It is our mission to destroy the Lie; and to effect this, we must begin at the very commencement. Now the beginning of all those lies which have ground down this poor world in slavery is God. For many hundred years monarchs and priests have inoculated the hearts and minds of mankind with this notion of a God ruling over the world. They have also invented for the people the notion of another world, in which their God is to punish with eternal torture (not a Bible term) those who have refused to obey their degrading laws here on earth. This God is nothing but the personification of absolute tyranny, and has been invented with a view of either frightening or alluring nine-tenths of the human race into submission to the remaining tenth. If there were really a God, surely he would use that lightning which he holds in his hand to destroy those thrones, to the steps of which mankind is chained. He would assuredly use it to overthrow those altars where the truth is hidden by clouds of lying incense. Tear out of your hearts the belief in the existence [pg 231] of God; for as long as an atom of that silly superstition remains in your minds you will never know what freedom is.”
This has the genuine Ingersoll ring upon the subject of “Liberty of Man, Woman and Child.” “When you have got rid of this belief in this priest-begotten God, and when, moreover, you are convinced that your existence, and that of the surrounding world, is due to the conglomeration of atoms, in accordance with the law of gravity and attraction, then, and then only, you will have accomplished the first steps toward liberty, and will experience less difficulty in ridding your minds of that second lie which tyranny has invented.
“The first lie is God. The second lie is Right. Might invented the fiction of Right in order to insure and strengthen her reign; that Right which she herself does not heed, and which only serves as a barrier against any attacks which may be made by the trembling and stupid masses of mankind.
“Might, my friends, forms the sole ground-work of society. Might makes and unmakes laws, and that might should be in the hands of the majority. It should be in the possession of those nine-tenths of the human race whose immense power has been rendered subservient to the remaining tenth by means of that lying fiction of Right, before which you are accustomed to bow your heads and to drop your arms. Once penetrated with a clear conviction of your own might, you will be able to destroy this mere notion of right.
“And when you have freed your minds from the fear of a God, and from that childish respect for the fiction of Right, then all the remaining chains which bind you, and which are called science, civilization, property, marriage, morality and justice, will snap asunder like threads.
“Let your own happiness be your only law. But in order to get this law recognized, and to bring about the proper relations which should exist between the majority and minority of mankind, you must destroy everything which exists in the shape of state or social organization. So educate yourselves and your children that, when the great moment for constituting [pg 232] the new world arrives, your eyes may not be blinded and deceived by the falsehoods of the tyrants of throne and altar.
“Our first work must be destruction and annihilation of everything as it now exists. You must accustom yourselves to destroy everything, the good with the bad; for if but an atom of this world remains the new will never be created.
“According to the priests' fables, in days of old, a deluge destroyed all mankind, but their God especially saved Noah in order that the seeds of tyranny and falsehoods might be perpetuated in the new world. When you once begin your work of destruction, and when the floods of enslaved masses of the people rise and engulph temples and palaces, then take heed that no ark be allowed to rescue any atom of this old world which we consecrate to destruction.”
A representative of the kingdom of darkness.
“Destruction and misery are in their ways, and the way of peace they know not.”