The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll, Complete Contents / Dresden Edition—Twelve Volumes

by Robert Green Ingersoll

"What is there in other men that makes us desire their approbation, and fear their censure more than our own?"

Horace Seaver was a good and loyal citizen of the mental republic—a believer in, intellectual hospitality, one who knew that bigotry is born of ignorance and fear—the provincialisms of the brain. He did not belong to the tribe, or to the nation, but to the human race. His sympathy was wide as want, and, like the sky, bent above the suffering world.

This man had that superb thing called moral courage—courage in its highest form. He knew that his thoughts were not the thoughts of others—that he was with the few, and that where one would take his side, thousands would be his eager foes. He knew that wealth would scorn and cultured ignorance deride, and that believers in the creeds, buttressed by law and custom, would hurl the missiles of revenge and hate. He knew that lies, like snakes, would fill the pathway of his life—and yet he told his honest thought—told it without hatred and without contempt—told it as it really was. And so, through all his days, his heart was sound and stainless to the core.

When he enlisted in the army whose banner is light, the honest investigator was looked upon as lost and cursed, and even Christian criminals held him in contempt. The believing embezzler, the orthodox wife-beater, even the murderer, lifted his bloody hands and thanked God that on his soul there was no stain of unbelief.

In nearly every State of our Republic, the man who denied the absurdities and impossibilities lying at the foundation of what is called orthodox religion, was denied his civil rights. He was not canopied by the ægis of the law. He stood beyond the reach of sympathy. He was not allowed to testify against the invader of his home, the seeker for his life—his lips were closed. He was declared dishonorable, because he was honest. His unbelief made him a social leper, a pariah, an outcast. He was the victim of religious hate and scorn. Arrayed against him were all the prejudices and all the forces and hypocrisies of society. All mistakes and lies were his enemies. Even the Theist was denounced as a disturber of the peace, although he told his thoughts in kind and candid words. He was called a blasphemer, because he sought to rescue the reputation of his God from the slanders of orthodox priests.

Such was the bigotry of the time, that natural love was lost. The unbelieving son was hated by his pious sire, and even the mother's heart was by her creed turned into stone.

Horace Seaver pursued his way. He worked and wrought as best he could, in solitude and want. He knew the day would come. He lived to be rewarded for his toil—to see most of the laws repealed that had made outcasts of the noblest, the wisest, and the best. He lived to see the foremost preachers of the world attack the sacred creeds. He lived to see the sciences released from superstition's clutch. He lived to see the orthodox theologian take his place with the professor of the black art, the fortune-teller, and the astrologer. He lived to see the greatest of the world accept his thought—to see the theologian displaced by the true priests of Nature—by Humboldt and Darwin, by Huxley and Haeckel.

Within the narrow compass of his life the world was changed. The railway, the steamship, and the telegraph made all nations neighbors. Countless inventions have made the luxuries of the past the necessities of to-day. Life has been enriched, and man ennobled. The geologist has read the records of frost and flame, of wind and wave—the astronomer has told the story of the stars—the biologist has sought the germ of life, and in every department of knowledge the torch of science sheds its sacred light.

The ancient creeds have grown absurd. The miracles are small and mean. The inspired book is filled with fables told to please a childish world, and the dogma of eternal pain now shocks the heart and brain.

He lived to see a monument unveiled to Bruno in the city of Rome—to Giordano Bruno—that great man who two hundred and eighty-nine years ago suffered death for having proclaimed the truths that since have filled the world with joy. He lived to see the victim of the church a victor—lived to see his memory honored by a nation freed from papal chains.