Canniff Haight - "Life in Canada Fifty Years Ago"

J. Hartley Manners - "Peg O' My Heart"

Ignatius Donnelly - "Ragnarok: The Age of Fire and Gravel"

Thomas Malthus - "Nature and Progress of Rent"

New Philadelphia Book Publisher Highlights Local Talent
Book and Publishing News from Publishers Newswire(tm)

Looking for Child to be on Cover of a New Book, 'The Model Child'
PHILADELPHIA, Pa. -- The Philadelphia literary world will celebrate the launch of two new players today, April 10th: Kay Square Press, a new publishing company focused on Philadelphia-area artists, their stories, and their art; and Kay Square's first release, 'With the Rich and Mighty: Emlen Etting of Philadelphia' (ISBN: 978-0-9815129-0-7), a critical biography by Kenneth C. Kaleta.

FlatSigned Press Alleges Don Imus Remarks Damage Legacy of President Gerald R. Ford
NEW YORK, N.Y. -- Nathan Yungerberg, an accomplished model scout and professional child photographer is launching a nation-wide casting call to find the cover model for his highly anticipated book release, 'The Model Child: A Parents Guide to the Child Modeling Industry' (ISBN: 978-0-9817018-0-6).

Books: Lectures Of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Vol. I

C >> Col. Robert Green Ingersoll >> Lectures Of Col. R. G. Ingersoll, Vol. I




One of the commandments said they should not make any graven images, and
that was the death of art in Palestine. No sculptor has ever enriched
stone with the divine forms of beauty in that country; and any
commandment that is the death of art is not a good commandment. But they
say the Bible is morally inspired; and they tell me there is no
civilization without this Bible. Then God knows that just as well as
you do. God always knew it, and if you can't civilize a nation without
a Bible, why didn't God give every nation just one Bible to start with?
Why did God allow hundreds of thousands and billions of billions to go
down to hell just for the lack of a Bible? They say that it is morally
inspired. Well, let us examine it. I want to be fair about this thing,
because I am willing to stake my salvation or damnation upon this
question--whether the Bible is true or not. I say it is not and upon
that I am willing to wager my soul. Is there a woman here who believes
in the institution of polygamy? Is there a man here who believes in that
infamy? You say: "No, we do not." Then you are better than your God
was four thousand years ago. Four thousand years ago he believed in it,
taught it and upheld it. I pronounce it and denounce it the infamy of
infamies. It robs our language of every sweet and tender word in it.
It takes the fire-side away forever. It takes the meaning out of the
words father, mother, sister, brother, and turns the temple of love into
a vile den where crawl the slimy snakes of lust and hatred. I was in
Utah a little while ago, and was on the mountain where God used to talk
to Brigham Young. He never said anything to me. I said that it was
just as reasonable that God in the nineteenth century should talk to a
polygamist in Utah as it was that four thousand years ago, on Mount
Sinai, he talked to Moses upon that hellish and damnable question.

I have no love for any God who believes in polygamy. There is no heaven
on this earth save where the one woman loves the one man and the one man
loves the one woman. I guess it is not inspired on the polygamy
question. May be it is inspired about religious liberty. God says if
anybody differs with you about religion, "kill him." He told His
peculiar people, "If any one teaches a different religion, kill him!"
He did not say, "Try and convince him that he is wrong," but "kill him."
He did not say, "I am in the miracle business, and I will convince him,"
but "kill him." He said to every husband, "If your wife, that you love
as you love your own soul, says, 'let us go and worship other gods,'
then 'Thy hand shall be first upon her and she shall be stoned with
stones until she dies.'" Well, now, I hate a God of that kind, and I
cannot think of being nearer heaven than to be away from Him. A God
tells a man to kill his wife simply because she differs with him on
religion! If the real God were to tell me to kill my wife, I would not
do it. If you had lived in Palestine at that time, and your wife--the
mother of your children--had woke up at night and said "I am tired of
Jehovah. He is always turning up that board-bill. He is always telling
about whipping the Egyptians. He is always killing somebody. I am
tired of Him. Let us worship the sun. The sun has clothed the world in
beauty; it has covered the earth with green and flowers; by its divine
light I first saw your face; its light has enabled me to look into the
eyes of my beautiful babe. Let us worship the sun, father and mother of
light and love and joy." Then what would it be your duty to do--kill
her? Do you believe a real God ever did that? Your hand should be
first upon her, and when you took up some ragged rock and hurled it
against the white bosom filled with love for you, and saw running away
the red current of her sweet life, then you would look up to heaven and
receive the congratulations of the infinite fiend whose commandments you
had to obey. I guess the Bible was not inspired about religious
liberty. Let me ask you right here: Suppose, as a matter of fact, God
gave those laws to the Jews and told them "whenever a man preaches a
different religion, kill him," and suppose that afterwards the same God
took upon Himself flesh, and came to the world and taught and preached a
different religion, and the Jews crucified Him--did He not reap exactly
what He sowed?

May be this book is inspired about war. God told the Israelites to
overrun that country, and kill every man, woman and child for defending
their native land. Kill the old men? Yes. Kill the women? Certainly.
And the little dimpled babes in the cradle, that smile and coo in the
face of murder--dash out their brains; that is the will of God. Will
you tell me that any God ever commanded such infamy? Kill the men and
the women, and the young men and the babes! "What shall we do with the
maidens?" "Give them to the rabble murderers!" Do you believe that God
ever allowed the roses of love and the violets of modesty that shed
their perfume in the heart of a maiden to be trampled beneath the brutal
feet of lust? If there is any God, I pray Him to write in the book of
eternal remembrance opposite to my name, that I denied that lie.

Whenever a woman reads a Bible and comes to that passage, she ought to
throw the book from her in contempt and scorn. Do you tell me that any
decent god would do that? What would the devil have done under the same
circumstances? Just think of it, and yet that is the God that we want
to get into the Constitution. That is the God we teach our children
about so that they will be sweet and tender, amiable and kind! That
monster--that fiend--I guess the Bible is not inspired about religious
liberty, nor about war.

Then, if it is not inspired about these things, may be it is inspired
about slavery. God tells the Jews to buy up the children of the heathen
round about and they should be servants for them. What is a "servant?"
If they struck a "servant" and he died immediately, punishment was to
follow; but if the injured man should linger a while, there was no
punishment, because the servant represented their money! Do you believe
that it is right--that God made one man to work for another and to
receive pay in rations? Do you believe God said that a whip on the
naked back was the legal tender for labor performed? Is it possible that
the real God ever gave such infamous, blood-thirsty laws? What more
does He say? When the time of a married slave expired, he could not
take his wife and children with him. Then if the slave did not wish to
desert his family, he had his ears pierced with an awl, and became his
master's property forever. Do you believe that God ever turned the
dimpled cheeks of little children into iron chains to hold a man in
slavery? Do you know that a God like that would not make a respectable
devil? I want none of his mercy. I want no part and no lot in the
heaven of such a God. I will go to perdition, where there is human
sympathy. The only voice we have ever had from either of those other
worlds came from hell. There was a rich man who prayed his brothers to
attend to Lazarus so that they might "not come to this place." That is
the only instance, so far as we know, of souls across the river having
any sympathy. And I would rather be in hell, asking for water, than in
heaven denying that petition. Well, what is this book inspired about?
Where does the inspiration come from? Why was it that so many animals
were killed? It was simply to make atonement for man--that is all.
They killed something that had not committed a crime, in order that the
one who had committed the crime might be acquitted. Based upon that
idea is the atonement of the Christian religion. That is the reason I
attack this book--because it is the basis of another infamy, viz: that
one man can be good for another, or that one man can sin for another. I
deny it. You have got to be good for yourself; you have got to sin for
yourself. The trouble about the atonement is, that it saves the wrong
man. For instance, I kill some one. He is a good man. He loves his
wife and children and tries to make them happy; but he is not a
Christian, and he goes to hell. Just as soon as I am convicted and
cannot get a pardon I get religion, and I go to heaven. The hand of
mercy cannot reach down through the shadows of hell to my victim.

There is no atonement for the saint--only for the sinner and the
criminal. The atonement saves the wrong man. I have said that I would
never make a lecture at all without attacking this doctrine. I did not
care what I started out on. I was always going to attack this doctrine.
And in my conclusion I want to draw you a few pictures of the Christian
heaven. But before I do that I want to say the rest I have to say about
Moses. I want you to understand that the Bible was never printed until
1488. I want you to know that up to that time it was in manuscript, in
possession of those who could change it if they wished; and they did
change it, because no two ever agreed. Much of it was in the waste
basket of credulity, in the open mouth of tradition, and in the dull ear
of memory. I want you also to know that the Jews themselves never
agreed as to what books were inspired, and that there were a lot of
books written that were not incorporated in the Old Testament. I want
you to know that two or three years before Christ, the Hebrew manuscript
was translated into Greek, and that the original from which the
translation was made, has never been seen since. Some Latin Bibles were
found in Africa but no two agreed; and then they translated the
Septuagint into the languages of Europe, and no two agreed. Henry VIII.
took a little time between murdering his wives to see that the Word of
God was translated correctly. You must recollect that we are indebted
to murderers for our Bibles and our creeds. Constantine, who helped on
the good work in its early stage, murdered his wife and child, mingling
their blood with the blood of the Savior.

The Bible that Henry VIII. got up did not suit, and then his daughter,
the murderess of Mary, Queen of Scots, got up another edition, which
also did not suit; and finally, that philosophical idiot, King James,
prepared the edition which we now have. There are at least one hundred
thousand errors in the Old Testament, but everybody sees that it is not
enough to invalidate its claim to infallibility. But these errors are
gradually being fixed, and hereafter the prophet will be fed by Arabs
instead of "ravens," and Samson's three hundred foxes will be three
hundred "sheaves" already bound, which were fired and thrown into the
standing wheat. I want you all to know that there was no
contemporaneous literature at the time the Bible was composed, and that
the Jews were infinitely ignorant in their day and generation--that they
were isolated by bigotry and wickedness from the rest of the world. I
want you to know that there are fourteen hundred millions of people in
the world; and that with all the talk and work of the societies, only
one hundred and twenty millions have got Bibles. I want you to
understand that not one person in one hundred in this world ever read
the Bible, and no two ever understood it alike who did read it, and that
no one person probably ever understood it aright. I want you to
understand that where this Bible has been, man has hated his brother--
there have been dungeons, racks, thumbscrews, and the sword. I want you
to know that the cross has been in partnership with the sword, and that
the religion of Jesus Christ was established by murderers, tyrants and
hypocrites. I want you to know that the church carried the black flag.
Then talk about the civilizing influence of this religion!

Now, I want to give an idea or two in regard to the Christian's heaven.
Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to
heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind. "If I can
only get my little soul in." I have always noticed that the people who
have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved.
Here is what we are taught by the church today. We are taught by it
that fathers and mothers, brothers and sisters can all be happy in
heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband can be happy
there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his
life, in hell. But they say, "We don't believe in fire. What we believe
in now is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the mean things
you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the
mean things you have done when you are in heaven? Or will you be so good
then that you won't care how you used to be? Don't you see what an
infinitely mean belief that is? I tell you today that, no matter in
what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending the
summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged you will drop a
little behind in the tune. And, no matter in what part of hell you are,
and you meet some one whom you have succored, whose nakedness you have
clothed, and whose famine you have fed, the fire will cool up a little.
According to this Christian doctrine, when you are in heaven you won't
care how mean you were once. What must be the social condition of a
gentleman in heaven who will admit that he never would have been there
if he had not got scared? What must be the social position of an angel
who will always admit that if another had not pitied him he ought to
have been damned? Is it a compliment to an infinite God to say that
every being He ever made deserved to be damned the minute He got him
done, and that He will damn everybody He has not had a chance to make
over. Is it possible that somebody else can be good for me, and that
this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul?

For instance: here is a man seventy years of age, who has been a
splendid fellow and lived according to the laws of nature. He has got
about him splendid children whom he has loved and cared for with all his
heart. But he did not happen to believe in this Bible; he did not
believe in the Pentateuch. He did not believe that because some
children made fun of a gentleman who was short of hair, God sent two
bears and tore the little darlings to pieces. He had a tender heart,
and he thought about the mothers who would take the pieces, the bloody
fragments of the children, and press them to their bosom in a frenzy of
grief; he thought about their wails and lamentations, and could not
believe that God was such an infinite monster. That was all he thought,
but he went to Hell. Then, there is another man who made a hell on
earth for his wife, who had to be taken to the insane asylum, and his
children were driven from home and were wanderers and vagrants in the
world. But just between the last sin and the last breath, this fellow
got religion, and he never did another thing except to take his
medicine. He never did a solitary human being a favor, and he died and
went to heaven. Don't you think he would be astonished to see that
other man in hell, and say to himself, "Is it possible that such a
splendid character should bear such fruit, and that all my rascality at
last has brought me next to God?"

Or, let us put another case. You were once alone in the desert--no
provisions, no water, no hope, just when your life was at its lowest ebb
a man appeared, gave you water and food and brought you safely out. How
you would bless that man. Time rolls on. You die and go to heaven;
and one day you see through the black night of hell, the friend who
saved your life, begging for a drop of water to cool his parched lips.
He cries to you, "Remember what I did in the desert--give me to drink."
How mean, how contemptible you would feel to see his suffering and be
unable to relieve him. But this is the Christian heaven. We sit by the
fireside and see the flames and the sparks fly up the chimney--everybody
happy, and the cold wind and sleet are beating on the window, and out on
the doorstep is a mother with a child on her breast freezing. How happy
it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast. And we say, "God is
good," and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night but
forever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children,
everybody eating, happy and delighted; and Famine comes and pushes out
its shriveled palms, and, with hungry eyes, implores us for a crust.
How that would increase the appetite! And yet that is the Christian
heaven. Don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human
heart? And I would have everyone who hears me, swear that he will never
contribute another dollar to build another church in which is taught
such infamous lies. I want everyone of you to say, that you never will,
directly or indirectly, give a dollar to any man to preach that
falsehood. It has done harm enough. It has covered the world with
blood. It has filled the asylums for the insane. It has cast a shadow
in the heart, in the sunlight of every good and tender man and woman. I
say let us rid the heavens of this monster, and write upon the dome
"Liberty, love and law."

No matter what may come to me or what may come to you, let us do exactly
what we believe to be right, and let us give the exact thought in our
brains. Rather than have this Christianity true, I would rather all the
gods would destroy themselves this morning. I would rather the whole
universe would go to nothing, if such a thing were possible, this
instant. Rather than have the glittering dome of pleasure reared on the
eternal abyss of pain, I would see the utter and eternal destruction of
this universe. I would rather see the shining fabric of our universe
crumble to unmeaning chaos, and take itself where oblivion broods and
memory forgets. I would rather the blind Samson of some imprisoned
force, released by thoughtless chance, should so rack and strain this
world that man in stress and strain, in astonishment and fear, should
suddenly fall back to savagery and barbarity. I would rather that this
thrilled and thrilling globe, shorn of all life, should in its cycles
rub the wheel, the parent star, on which the light should fall as
fruitlessly as falls the gaze of love on death, than to have this
infamous doctrine of eternal punishment true; rather than have this
infamous selfishness of a heaven for a few and a hell for the many
established as the word of God.

One world at a time is my doctrine. Let us make some one happy here.
Happiness is the interest that a decent action draws, and the more
decent actions you do, the larger your income will be. Let every man
try to make his wife happy, his children happy. Let every man try to
make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. I cannot
help God; I cannot injure God. I can help people; I can injure
people. Consequently humanity is the only real religion.

I cannot better close this lecture than by quoting four lines from
Robert Burns"

"To make a happy fireside clime
To weans and wife--
That's the true pathos and sublime
Of human life."





INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON SKULLS,--And His Replies To Prof. Swing, Dr.
Collyer, And Other Critics--Reprinted from "The Chicago Times."


Ladies and Gentlemen: Man advances just in the proportion that he
mingles his thoughts with his labor--just in the proportion that he
takes advantage of the forces of nature; just in proportion as he loses
superstition and gains confidence in himself. Man advances as he ceases
to fear the gods and learns to love his fellow-men. It is all, in my
judgment, a question of intellectual development. Tell me the religion
of any man and I will tell you the degree he marks on the intellectual
thermometer of the world. It is a simple question of brain. Those
among us who are the nearest barbarism have a barbarian religion. Those
who are nearest civilization have the least superstition. It is, I say,
a simple question of brain, and I want, in the first place, to lay the
foundation to prove that assertion.

A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has made.
I saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which
floated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with teeth
twice as long as his forehead was high, with a spoonful of brains in the
back of his orthodox head--I saw models of all the water craft of the
world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns
and miles of canvas; from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its
brave prow from the port of New York with a compass like a conscience,
crossing three thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat
of its mighty iron heart from shore to shore. And I saw at the same
time the paintings of the world, from the rude daub of yellow mud to the
landscapes that enrich palaces and adorn houses of what were once called
the common people. I saw also their sculpture, from the rude god with
four legs, a half dozen arms, several noses, and two or three rows of
ears, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of
today,--to the marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that
it seems almost impudent to touch them without an introduction. I saw
their books--books written upon the skins of wild beasts--upon shoulder-
blades of sheep--books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to the
splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. When I speak of
libraries I think of the remark of Plato: "A house that has a library
in it has a soul."

I saw at the same time the offensive weapons that man has made, from a
club, such as was grasped by that same savage when he crawled from his
den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to
the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to
the flintlock, to the caplock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by
Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through
eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw too, the armor from the shell of
a turtle that one of our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he
went to fight for his country, the skin of a porcupine, dried with the
quills on, which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to
the shirts of mail that were worn in the middle ages, that laughed at
the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a
monitor clad in complete steel. And I say orthodox not only in the
matter of religion, but in everything. Whoever has quit growing, he is
orthodox, whether in art, politics, religion, philosophy--no matter
what. Whoever thinks he has found it all out he is orthodox. Orthodoxy
is that which rots, and heresy is that which grows forever. Orthodoxy
is the night of the past, full of the darkness of superstition, and
heresy is the eternal coming day, the light of which strikes the grand
foreheads of the intellectual pioneers of the world. I saw their
implements of agriculture, from the plow made of a crooked stick,
attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, with which our
ancestors scraped the earth, and from that to the agricultural
implements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to
cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.

In the old time there was but one crop; and when the rain did not come
in answer to the prayer of hypocrites a famine came and people fell upon
their knees. At that time they were full of superstition. They were
frightened all the time for fear that some god would be enraged at his
poor, hapless, feeble and starving children. But now, instead of
depending upon one crop they have several, and if there is not rain
enough for one there may be enough for another. And if the frosts kill
all, we have railroads and steamship--enough to bring what we need from
some other part of the world. Since man has found out something about
agriculture, the gods have retired from the business of producing
famines.

I saw at the same time their musical instruments, from the tomtom--that
is, a hoop with a couple of strings of rawhide drawn across it--from
that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have today, that make the common
air blossom with melody, and I said to myself there is a regular
advancement. I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the
lowest skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull--skulls from
Central Africa, skulls from the bushmen of Australia--skulls from the
farthest isles of the Pacific Sea--up to the best skulls of the last
generation--and I noticed that there was the same difference between
those skulls that there was between the products of those skulls, and I
said to myself: "After all, it is a simple question of intellectual
development." There was the same difference between those skulls, the
lowest and highest skulls, that there was between the dug-out and the
man-of-war and the steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun,
between the yellow daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an
opera by Verdi. The first and lowest skull in this row was the den in
which crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was
a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty and love. And I said to myself, it
is all a question of intellectual development.