The name Robert Green Ingersoll is probably unfamiliar to many. Yet, some would argue that he was the foremost orator and political speechmaker of the late 19th century in America--perhaps the best-known American of the post-Civil War era.
Ingersoll was born in Dresden, New York in 1833. His father was a Presbyterian minister and the family moved often.
The Ingersolls left Dresden when Robert was less than four months old and in time he would make his name as an attorney in Peoria, before moving on to Washington, D.C.; and finally New York City.
Following distinguished service in the Civil War, he served as the first Attorney General of Illinois.
Politically, he allied with the Republicans, the party of Lincoln and in those days the voice of progressivism. Ingersoll's electrifying speaking voice soon made him the most sought-after orator of his day often commanding up to $7,000 ($50,000 in today's money) per speech.
On tour after tour, he crisscrossed the country and spoke before packed houses on topics ranging from Shakespeare to Reconstruction, from science to religion.
In an age when oratory was the dominant form of public entertainment, Ingersoll was the unchallenged king of American orators.
Ingersoll was the friend of Presidents, literary giants like Mark Twain, captains of industry like Andrew Carnegie, and leading figures in the arts.
He was also beloved of reformers like Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Other Americans considered themselves his enemies.
He bitterly opposed the Religious Right of his day. He was an early popularizer of Charles Darwin and a tireless advocate of science and reason. He was a tireless advocate for the rights of women and African-Americans.
Ingersoll also praised the virtues of family life and he practiced what he preached.
Contemporary sources say Ingersoll enjoyed almost idyllic contentment in family life and opponents frequently despaired of finding anything to disparage in his personal life.
In 1886, Ingersoll offered himself pro bono to defend Charles B. Reynolds, a prominent freethinker who had been arrested in Boonton, New Jersey under an archaic blasphemy law.
Reynolds was convicted and Ingersoll paid the $50 fine himself.
But so effectively had Ingersoll mocked the idea of blasphemy laws in a free society that few states have attempted a blasphemy prosecution since.
As one biographer summed it up, Ingersoll was "an indefatigable speaker possessed of a photographic memory and a keen wit. He was a brilliant trial lawyer, irrepressible infidel and public lecturer without equal."
And yet I am sure that if Dan hadn't asked me to speak on Ingersoll and his life, many of us would have passed through this life blissfully unaware of this fascinating character.
So what I want to do this morning is to focus not so much on Ingersoll's life as his writings.
I hope that I can do justice to his oratory as I attempt to bring to life words spoken over 100 years ago that seem as relevant today as when they were first uttered.
I want to bring into focus this man whose thinking set the framework for the modern humanist movement.
"I believe in the nobility of human nature," he wrote. "I believe in love and home, kindness and humanity.
I believe in good fellowship and cheerfulness, in making wife and children happy. I believe in good nature, in giving others all the rights that you claim for yourself.
I believe in free thought, in reason, observation, and experience.
I believe in self-reliance and in expressing your honest thought.
I have hope for the whole human race. What will happen to one, I hope, will happen to all and that, I hope, will be good. Above all, I believe in liberty (Greely, 83)."
Ingersoll later observed that "All the blessings we now enjoy--for progress in every form, for science and art--for all that has lengthened life, that has conquered disease, that has lessened pain, for raiment, roof and food, for music in its highest forms--
for the poetry that has ennobled and enriched our lives--for the marvelous machines now working for the world--for all, these we are indebted to the worldly--to those who turned their attention to the affairs of this life. They have been the only benefactors of this life (ii, 436)."
Ingersoll was once asked if he thought life was worth living and he replied, "Is life worth living? Well, I can only answer for myself. I like to be alive, to breathe the air, top look at the landscape, the clouds, the stars, to repeat the old poems, to look at pictures and statues, to hear music, the voices of the ones I love.
I enjoy eating and smoking. I like good cold water. I like to talk with my wife, my girls, my grandchildren. I like to sleep and dream. Yes, you can say that life, to me, is worth living."
As Ingersoll aged he became convinced that the ultimate goal in life was happiness. He wrote that happiness is the only good. The place to be happy is here. The time to be happy is now. The way to be happy is to make others so.
Now from what I've said it might be tempting for we Unitarians to claim Ingersoll as one of our own but he definitely was not.
In fact his views of orthodox religion were strong and to the point.
Concerning religion he said, "Now, then, what is religion?
I say, religion is all here in this world -- right here -- and that all our duties are right here to our fellow-men;
that the man that builds a home; marries the girl that he loves; takes good care of her; likes the family; stays home nights, as a general thing; pays his debts; tries to find out what he can;
gets all the ideas and beautiful things that his mind will hold; turns a part of his brain into a gallery of fine arts; has a host of paintings and statues there; then has another niche devoted to music -- a magnificent dome, filled with winged notes that rise to glory -
now, the man who does that gets all he can from the great ones dead; swaps all the thoughts he can with the ones that are alive; true to the ideal that he has here in his brain--he is what I call a religious man, because he makes the world better, happier; he puts the dimples of joy in the cheeks of the ones he loves, and he lets the gods run heaven to suit themselves.
This is all the religion that I have; to make somebody else happier if I can.
I divide this world into two classes--the cruel and the kind; and I think a thousand times more of a kind man than I do of an intelligent man.
I think more of kindness than I do of genius, I think more of real, good, human nature in that way--of one who is willing to lend a helping hand and who goes through the world with a face that looks as if its owner were willing to answer a decent question--
I think a thousand times more of that than I do of being theologically right; because I do not care whether I am theologically right or not.
It is something that is not worth talking about, because it is something that I never, never, never shall understand;
and every one of you will die and you won't understand it either--until after you die at any rate and I do not know what will happen then."
Concerning the role of churches he said, "The church hates a thinker precisely for the same reason a robber dislikes a sheriff...
The church demands worship--the very thing that man should give to no being human or divine. To worship another is to degrade yourself.
Worship is awe and dread and vague fear and blind hope...
The spirit of worship is the spirit of tyranny (and) whoever worships abdicates.... The church has won no victories for man....
All that is good in our civilization is the result of commerce, climate, soil, geographical position, industry, invention, discovery, art, and science.
The church has been the enemy of progress, for the reason that it has endeavored to prevent man from thinking for himself. To prevent thought is to prevent all advancement except in the direction of faith."
Though not a Unitarian, Ingersoll had a definite affinity for the Unitarian movement of the mid nineteenth century over any other religious movement.
He was familiar with the preeminent Unitarian preacher Theodore Parker and all that Unitarians stood for.
Speaking before the Unitarian Club of New York City on January 15, 1892 this is what Robert Ingersoll had to say about our chosen faith:
"Let me say that I have great respect for the Unitarian Church. I have great respect for the memory of Theodore Parker.
I have great respect for every man who has assisted in relieving the heavens of an infinite monster.
I have great respect for every man who has helped to put out the fires of hell.
In other words, I have great respect for every man who has tried to civilize my race."
Here he goes non to say, "The Unitarian Church has done more than any other church --and maybe more than all other churches -- to substitute character for creed, and to say that a man should be judged by his spirit; by the climate of his heart; by the autumn of his generosity; by the spring of his hope;
that he should be judged by what he does; by the influence that he exerts, rather than by the mythology he may believe, And whether there be one God or a million,
I am perfectly satisfied that every duty that devolves upon me is within my reach, it is something that I can do myself, without the help of anybody else, either in this world or any other.
Now, in order to make myself plain on this subject--I think I was to speak about the Ideal--I I want to thank the Unitarian Church for what it has done; and I want to thank the Universalist Church, too.
They at least believe in a God who is a gentleman; and that is much more than was ever done by an orthodox church.
They believe, at least, in a heavenly father who will leave the latchstring out until the last child gets home; and as that lets me in--especially in reference to the "last"--I have great respect for that church, (too)."
Don't think that he was in any way wavering from his staunch humanist views for near the end of his life an interviewer asked Ingersoll if it was true that he had changed or modified his views upon the subject of religion. "Is this so," asked the questioner?
"It is not so," came the reply. "The only change, if it can be called a change, is that I am more perfectly satisfied that I am right--
satisfied that what is called orthodox religion is a simple fabrication of mistaken men;
satisfied that there is no such thing as an inspired book and never will be; satisfied that a miracle never was and never will be performed;
satisfied that no human being knows whether there is a God or nor, whether there is another life or not;
satisfied that the doctrine that salvation depends on belief, is cruel and absurd;
satisfied that the doctrine of eternal punishment is infamously false;
satisfied that superstition is of no use to the human race; satisfied that humanity is the only true and real religion. (viii, 245-246)"
But in spite of his occasional bravado and strong language, Ingersoll was a deeply introspective and thoughtful individual.
He was, I think, at heart a very religious man. Not religious in the traditional sense of believing in God and the creeds of the church; but deeply religious in his belief in the ultimate goodness of humanity and the importance of the human imagination--whether in science or medicine or the arts.
Ingersoll's faith was a profound and life long conviction that humanity is the only true and real religion.
What is difficult to understand about his life is why he is so little known today.
He is not mentioned in many of the standard histories of our movement and I can not recall his name coming up in any class I might have had in seminary.
I suppose the question begs to be asked, "How could it be that so knowledgeable and progressive a thinker as Ingersoll disappeared from the religious scene?"
His biographer may have a ready answer.
He writes "Ingersoll made the majority uncomfortable. The majority preferred to misunderstand him, for to understand him would require a substantial revision and repudiation of many comforting allusions, lovely lies, and supportive superstitions. Most people preferred to accept old traditions with an embarrassed silence rather than join with the Great Agnostic."
He challenged the "good people" by calling them bigots as he argued strongly for abolition stating that, "We must admit that slavery is immoral. I do not believe in a slave holding God."
He irritated mainstream religious leaders with proclamations such as "The truth is...our government is not founded upon the rights of gods but the rights of men.
Our Constitution was framed not to declare the deity of Christ, but the sacredness of humanity.... Church and state should be absolutely divorced.
And he angered many with his ardent support of women's rights. On one occasion he quipped, "The men who declare that woman is the intellectual inferior of man, do not and cannot, by offering themselves in evidence, substantiate their declaration."
So, let me now conclude with these words from Robert Green Ingersoll. Words that seem to me to capture the very essence of the man. Words Ingersoll referred to as "my Creed":
"To love justice, to long for the right, to love mercy, to pity the suffering, to assist the weak, to forget wrongs and remember benefits--
to love the truth, to be sincere, to utter honest words, to love liberty, to wage relentless war against slavery in all its forms,
to love wife and child and friend, to make a happy home, to love the beautiful in art and nature, to cultivate the mind, to cultivate courage and cheerfulness,...
to make others happy, to fill life with the splendor of generous acts and the warmth of loving words,
to discard error, to destroy prejudice, to receive new truths with gladness, to cultivate hope, to see the calm before the storm and the dawn beyond the night,
to do the best that can be done and then be resigned."
Robert Green Ingersoll, where is your likeness today?
Amen and Blessed be.