The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 33

You are about to take this dear dust home--to the home of her girlhood, and to the place that was once my home. You will lay her with neighbors whom I have loved, and who are now at rest. You will lay her where my father sleeps.

"Lay her i' the earth, And from her fair and unpolluted flesh May violets spring."

I never knew, I never met, a braver spirit than the one that once inhabited this silent form of dreamless clay.

A TRIBUTE TO HENRY WARD BEECHER.

New York, June 26,1887.

HENRY WARD BEECHER was born in a Puritan penitentiary, of which his father was one of the wardens--a prison with very narrow and closely-grated windows. Under its walls were the rayless, hopeless and measureless dungeons of the d.a.m.ned, and on its roof fell the shadow of G.o.d's eternal frown. In this prison the creed and catechism were primers for children, and from a pure sense of duty their loving hearts were stained and scarred with the religion of John Calvin.

In those days the home of an orthodox minister was an inquisition in which babes were tortured for the good of their souls. Children then, as now, rebelled against the infamous absurdities and cruelties of the creed. No Calvinist was ever able, unless with blows, to answer the questions of his child. Children were raised in what was called "the nurture and admonition of the Lord"--that is to say, their wills were broken or subdued, their natures were deformed and dwarfed, their desires defeated or destroyed, and their development arrested or perverted. Life was robbed of its Spring, its Summer and its Autumn.

Children stepped from the cradle into the snow. No laughter, no sunshine, no joyous, free, unburdened days. G.o.d, an infinite detective, watched them from above, and Satan, with malicious leer, was waiting for their souls below. Between these monsters life was pa.s.sed. Infinite consequences were predicated of the smallest action, and a burden greater than a G.o.d could bear was placed upon the heart and brain of every child. To think, to ask questions, to doubt, to investigate, were acts of rebellion. To express pity for the lost, writhing in the dungeons below, was simply to give evidence that the enemy of souls had been at work within their hearts.

Among all the religions of this world--from the creed of cannibals who devoured flesh, to that of Calvinists who polluted souls--there is none, there has been none, there will be none, more utterly heartless and inhuman than was the orthodox Congregationalism of New England in the year of grace 1813. It despised every natural joy, hated pictures, abhorred statues as lewd and l.u.s.tful things, execrated music, regarded nature as fallen and corrupt, man as totally depraved and woman as somewhat worse. The theatre was the vestibule of perdition, actors the servants of Satan, and Shakespeare a trifling wretch whose words were seeds of death. And yet the virtues found a welcome, cordial and sincere; duty was done as understood; obligations were discharged; truth was told; self-denial was practiced for the sake of others, and many hearts were good and true in spite of book and creed.

In this atmosphere of theological miasma, in this hideous dream of superst.i.tion, in this penitentiary, moral and austere, this babe first saw the imprisoned gloom. The natural desires ungratified, the laughter suppressed, the logic brow-beaten by authority, the humor frozen by fear--of many generations--were in this child, a child destined to rend and wreck the prison's walls.

Through the grated windows of his cell, this child, this boy, this man, caught glimpses of the outer world, of fields and skies. New thoughts were in his brain, new hopes within his heart. Another heaven bent above his life. There came a revelation of the beautiful and real.

Theology grew mean and small. Nature wooed and won and saved this mighty soul.

Her countless hands were sowing seeds within his tropic brain. All sights and sounds--all colors, forms and fragments--were stored within the treasury of his mind. His thoughts were moulded by the graceful curves of streams, by winding paths in woods, the charm of quiet country roads, and lanes grown indistinct with weeds and gra.s.s--by vines that cling and hide with leaf and flower the crumbling wall's decay--by cattle standing in the summer pools like statues of content.

There was within his words the subtle spirit of the season's change--of everything that is, of everything that lies between the slumbering seeds that, half awakened by the April rain, have dreams of heaven's blue, and feel the amorous kisses of the sun, and that strange tomb wherein the alchemist doth give to death's cold dust the throb and thrill of life again. He saw with loving eyes the willows of the meadow-streams grow red beneath the glance of Spring--the gra.s.s along the marsh's edge--the stir of life beneath the withered leaves--the moss below the drip of snow--the flowers that give their bosoms to the first south wind that wooes--the sad and timid violets that only bear the gaze of love from eyes half closed--the ferns, where fancy gives a thousand forms with but a single plan--the green and sunny slopes enriched with daisy's silver and the cowslip's gold.

As in the leafless woods some tree, aflame with life, stands like a rapt poet in the heedless crowd, so stood this man among his fellow-men.

All there is of leaf and bud, of flower and fruit, of painted insect life, and all the winged and happy children of the air that Summer holds beneath her dome of blue, were known and loved by him. He loved the yellow Autumn fields, the golden stacks, the happy homes of men, the orchard's bending boughs, the sumach's flags of flame, the maples with transfigured leaves, the tender yellow of the beech, the wondrous harmonies of brown and gold--the vines where hang the cl.u.s.tered spheres of wit and mirth. He loved the winter days, the whirl and drift of snow--all forms of frost--the rage and fury of the storm, when in the forest, desolate and stripped, the brave old pine towers green and grand--a prophecy of Spring. He heard the rhythmic sounds of Nature's busy strife, the hum of bees, the songs of birds, the eagle's cry, the murmur of the streams, the sighs and lamentations of the winds, and all the voices of the sea. He loved the sh.o.r.es, the vales, the crags and cliffs, the city's busy streets, the introspective, silent plain, the solemn splendors of the night, the silver sea of dawn, and evening's clouds of molten gold. The love of nature freed this loving man.

One by one the fetters fell; the gratings disappeared, the sunshine smote the roof, and on the floors of stone, light streamed from open doors. He realized the darkness and despair, the cruelty and hate, the starless blackness of the old, malignant creed. The flower of pity grew and blossomed in his heart. The selfish "consolation" filled his eyes with tears. He saw that what is called the Christian's hope is, that, among the countless billions wrecked and lost, a meagre few perhaps may reach the eternal sh.o.r.e--a hope that, like the desert rain, gives neither leaf nor bud--a hope that gives no joy, no peace, to any great and loving soul. It is the dust on which the serpent feeds that coils in heartless b.r.e.a.s.t.s.

Day by day the wrath and vengeance faded from the sky--the Jewish G.o.d grew vague and dint--the threats of torture and eternal pain grew vulgar and absurd, and all the miracles seemed strangely out of place. They clad the Infinite in motley garb, and gave to aureoled heads the cap and bells.

Touched by the pathos of all human life, knowing the shadows that fall on every heart--the thorns in every path, the sighs, the sorrows, and the tears that lie between a mother's arms and death's embrace--this great and gifted man denounced, denied, and d.a.m.ned with all his heart the fanged and frightful dogma that souls were made to feed the eternal hunger--ravenous as famine--of a G.o.d's revenge.

Take out this fearful, fiendish, heartless lie--compared with which all other lies are true--and the great arch of orthodox religion crumbling falls.

To the average man the Christian h.e.l.l and heaven are only words. He has no scope of thought. He lives but in a dim, impoverished now. To him the past is dead--the future still unborn. He occupies with downcast eyes that narrow line of barren, shifting sand that lies between the flowing seas. But Genius knows all time. For him the dead all live and breathe, and act their countless parts again. All human life is in his now, and every moment feels the thrill of all to be.

No one can overestimate the good accomplished by this marvelous, many-sided man. He helped to slay the heart-devouring monster of the Christian world. He tried to civilize the church, to humanize the creeds, to soften pious b.r.e.a.s.t.s of stone, to take the fear from mothers'

hearts, the chains of creed from every brain, to put the star of hope in every sky and over every grave. Attacked on every side, maligned by those who preached the law of love, he wavered not, but fought whole-hearted to the end.

Obstruction is but virtue's foil. From thwarted light leaps color's flame. The stream impeded has a song.

He pa.s.sed from harsh and cruel creeds to that serene philosophy that has no place for pride or hate, that threatens no revenge, that looks on sin as stumblings of the blind and pities those who fall, knowing that in the souls of all there is a sacred yearning for the light. He ceased to think of man as something thrust upon the world--an exile from some other sphere. He felt at last that men are part of Nature's self--kindred of all life--the gradual growth of countless years; that all the sacred books were helps until outgrown, and all religions rough and devious paths that man has worn with weary feet in sad and painful search for truth and peace. To him these paths were wrong, and yet all gave the promise of success. He knew that all the streams, no matter how they wander, turn and curve amid the hills or rocks, or linger in the lakes and pools, must some time reach the sea. These views enlarged his soul and made him patient with the world, and while the wintry snows of age were falling on his head, Spring, with all her wealth of bloom, was in his heart.

The memory of this ample man is now a part of Nature's wealth. He battled for the rights of men. His heart was with the slave. He stood against the selfish greed of millions banded to protect the pirate's trade. His voice was for the right when freedom's friends were few. He taught the church to think and doubt. He did not fear to stand alone. His brain took counsel of his heart. To every foe he offered reconciliation's hand. He loved this land of ours, and added to its glory through the world. He was the greatest orator that stood within the pulpit's narrow curve. He loved the liberty of speech. There was no trace of bigot in his blood. He was a brave and generous man.

With reverent hands, I place this tribute on his tomb.

A TRIBUTE TO ROSCOE CONKLING.

Delivered before the New York State Legislature, at Albany, N. Y, May 9,1888.

ROSCOE CONKLING--a great man, an orator, a statesman, a lawyer, a distinguished citizen of the Republic, in the zenith of his fame and power has reached his journey's end; and we are met, here in the city of his birth, to pay our tribute to his worth and work. He earned and held a proud position in the public thought. He stood for independence, for courage, and above all for absolute integrity, and his name was known and honored by many millions of his fellow-men.

The literature of many lands is rich with the tributes that grat.i.tude, admiration and love have paid to the great and honored dead. These tributes disclose the character of nations, the ideals of the human race. In them we find the estimates of greatness--the deeds and lives that challenged praise and thrilled the hearts of men.

In the presence of death, the good man judges as he would be judged. He knows that men are only fragments--that the greatest walk in shadow, and that faults and failures mingle with the lives of all.

In the grave should be buried the prejudices and pa.s.sions born of conflict. Charity should hold the scales in which are weighed the deeds of men. Peculiarities, traits born of locality and surroundings--these are but the dust of the race--these are accidents, drapery, clothes, fashions, that have nothing to do with the man except to hide his character. They are the clouds that cling to mountains. Time gives us clearer vision. That which was merely local fades away. The words of envy are forgotten, and all there is of sterling worth remains. He who was called a partisan is a patriot. The revolutionist and the outlaw are the founders of nations, and he who was regarded as a scheming, selfish politician becomes a statesman, a philosopher, whose words and deeds shed light.

Fortunate is that nation great enough to know the great.

When a great man dies--one who has n.o.bly fought the battle of a life, who has been faithful to every trust, and has uttered his highest, n.o.blest thought--one who has stood proudly by the right in spite of jeer and taunt, neither stopped by foe nor swerved by friend--in honoring him, in speaking words of praise and love above his dust, we pay a tribute to ourselves.

How poor this world would be without its graves, without the memories of its mighty dead. Only the voiceless speak forever.

Intelligence, integrity and courage are the great pillars that support the State.

Above all, the citizens of a free nation should honor the brave and independent man--the man of stainless integrity, of will and intellectual force. Such men are the Atlases on whose mighty shoulders rest the great fabric of the Republic. Flatterers, cringers, crawlers, time-servers are the dangerous citizens of a democracy. They who gain applause and power by pandering to the mistakes, the prejudices and pa.s.sions of the mult.i.tude, are the enemies of liberty.

When the intelligent submit to the clamor of the many, anarchy begins and the Republic reaches the edge of chaos. Mediocrity, touched with ambition, flatters the base and calumniates the great, while the true patriot, who will do neither, is often sacrificed.

In a government of the people a leader should be a teacher--he should carry the torch of truth.

Most people are the slaves of habit--followers of custom--believers in the wisdom of the past--and were it not for brave and splendid souls, "the dust of antique time would lie unswept, and mountainous error be too highly heaped for truth to overpeer." Custom is a prison, locked and barred by those who long ago were dust, the keys of which are in the keeping of the dead.

Nothing is grander than when a strong, intrepid man breaks chains, levels walls and b.r.e.a.s.t.s the many-headed mob like some great cliff that meets and mocks the innumerable billows of the sea.

The politician hastens to agree with the majority--insists that their prejudice is patriotism, that their ignorance is wisdom;--not that he loves them, but because he loves himself. The statesman, the real reformer, points out the mistakes of the mult.i.tude, attacks the prejudices of his countrymen, laughs at their follies, denounces their cruelties, enlightens and enlarges their minds and educates the conscience--not because he loves himself, but because he loves and serves the right and wishes to make his country great and free.

With him defeat is but a spur to further effort. He who refuses to stoop, who cannot be bribed by the promise of success, or the fear of failure--who walks the highway of the right, and in disaster stands erect, is the only victor. Nothing is more despicable than to reach fame by crawling,--position by cringing.

When real history shall be written by the truthful and the wise, these men, these kneelers at the shrines of chance and fraud, these brazen idols worshiped once as G.o.ds, will be the very food of scorn, while those who bore the burden of defeat, who earned and kept their self-respect, who would not bow to man or men for place or power, will wear upon their brows the laurel mingled with the oak.

Roscoe Conkling was a man of superb courage.

He not only acted without fear, but he had that fort.i.tude of soul that bears the consequences of the course pursued without complaint. He was charged with being proud. The charge was true--he was proud. His knees were as inflexible as the "unwedgeable and gnarled oak," but he was not vain. Vanity rests on the opinion of others--pride, on our own. The source of vanity is from without--of pride, from within. Vanity is a vane that turns, a willow that bends, with every breeze--pride is the oak that defies the storm. One is cloud--the other rock. One is weakness--the other strength.