Lightning, once feared as the wrathful manifestation of an angry God, was reproduced in the laboratory by that electrical wizard and atheist, Charles P. Steinmetz.
The telephone, wireless telegraphy, the steam engine, refrigeration, the washing and sewing machines, the mechanical weaving of cloth, and the myriad uses of electric and atomic power will make man the master of his destiny once he frees himself from the myth of a tyrant God.
Ingersoll best expressed man's inventions and their uses when he said that, "Science took the thunderbolt from the gods, and in the electric spark, freedom, with thought, with intelligence and with love, sweeps under all the waves of the sea; science, free thought, took a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created the giant that turns, with tireless arms, the countless wheels of toil."
Deprive man of the use of his discoveries and inventions of the past century and he will think he has been returned to barbarism.
Look what Thomas A. Edison's invention of the electric light did for man—it lengthened his life, it gave more hours to the day, and increased his comforts beyond anything previously known or imagined, and added immeasurably to his joy of living.
Even Joshua's fictitious performance of stopping the sun and the moon fades into nothingness when compared with this sublime achievement.
Nor must we forget Edison's invention for reproducing the human voice—and please grant me a moment's indulgence to say that I had the great honor to know Thomas A. Edison, and Edison honored me by calling me his friend.
If printing has been hailed as one of the world's great inventions, what must we say of the phonograph? While printing preserves man's thoughts on paper, the phonograph preserves not only his thoughts but also his voice!
The song of the skylark is no longer "wasted upon the desert air."