Question. What is his forte?
Answer. He is of a wonderfully poetic temperament. In pursuing any course of thought his mind is like a stream flowing through the scenery of fairyland. The stream murmurs and laughs while the banks grow green and the vines blossom.
His brain is controlled by his heart. He thinks in pictures. With him logic means mental melody. The discordant is the absurd.
For years he has endeavored to hide the dungeon of orthodoxy with the ivy of imagination. Now and then he pulls for a moment the leafy curtain aside and is horrified to see the lizards, snakes, basilisks and abnormal monsters of the orthodox age, and then he utters a great cry, the protest of a loving, throbbing heart.
He is a great thinker, a marvelous orator, and, in my judgment, greater and grander than any creed of any church.
Besides all this, he treated me like a king. Manhood is his forte, and I expect to live and die his friend.
BEECHER ON INGERSOLL.
Question. What is your opinion of Colonel Ingersoll?
Answer. I do not think there should be any misconception as to my motive for indorsing Mr. Ingersoll. I never saw him before that night, when I clasped his hand in the presence of an assemblage of citizens. Yet I regard him as one of the greatest men of this age.
Question. Is his influence upon the world good or otherwise?