The Works of Robert G. Ingersoll Volume XII Part 39

A TRIBUTE TO DR. THOMAS SETON ROBERTSON.

New York September 8, 1898.

IN the pulseless hush of death, silence seems more expressive, more appropriate--than speech. In the presence of the Great Mystery, the great mystery that waits to enshroud us all, we feel the uselessness of words. But where a fellow-mortal has reached his journey's end--where the darkness from which he emerged has received him again, it is but natural for his friends to mingle with their grief, expressions of their love and loss.

He who lies before us in the sleep of death was generous to his fellow-men. His hands were always stretched to help, to save. He pitied the friendless, the unfortunate, the hopeless--proud of his skill--of his success. He was quick to decide--to act--prompt, tireless, forgetful of self. He lengthened life and conquered pain--hundreds are well and happy now because he lived. This is enough. This puts a star above the gloom of death.

He was sensitive to the last degree--quick to feel a slight--to resent a wrong--but in the warmth of kindness the thorn of hatred blossomed. He was not quite fas.h.i.+oned for this world. The flints and thorns on life's highway bruised and pierced his flesh, and for his wounds he did not have the blessed balm of patience. He felt the manacles, the limitations--the imprisonments of life and so within the walls and bars he wore his very soul away. He could not bear the storms. The tides, the winds, the waves, in the morning of his life, dashed his frail bark against the rocks.

He fought as best he could, and that he failed was not his fault.

He was honest, generous and courageous. These three great virtues were his. He was a true and steadfast friend, seeing only the goodness of the ones he loved. Only a great and n.o.ble heart is capable of this.

But he has pa.s.sed beyond the reach of praise or blame--pa.s.sed to the realm of rest--to the waveless calm of perfect peace.

The storm is spent--the winds are hushed--the waves have died along the sh.o.r.e--the tides are still--the aching heart has ceased to beat, and within the brain all thoughts, all hopes and fears--ambitions, memories, rejoicings and regrets--all images and pictures of the world, of life, are now as though they had not been. And yet Hope, the child of Love--the deathless, beyond the darkness sees the dawn. And we who knew and loved him, we, who now perform the last sad rites--the last that friends.h.i.+p can suggest--"will keep his memory green."

Dear Friend, farewell! "If we do meet again we shall smile indeed--if not, this parting is well made." Farewell!

A TRIBUTE TO THOMAS CORWIN.

Lebanon, Ohio, March 5, 1899.

* An Impromptu preface to Colonel Ingersoll's lecture at Lebanon, Ohio.

LADIES and Gentlemen: Being for the first time where Thomas Corwin lived and where his ashes rest, I cannot refrain from saying something of what I feel. Thomas Corwin was a natural orator--armed with the sword of attack and the s.h.i.+eld of defence.

Nature filled his quiver with perfect arrows. He was the lord of logic and laughter. He had the presence, the pose, the voice, the face that mirrored thoughts, the unconscious gesture of the orator. He had intelligence--a wide horizon--logic as unerring as mathematics--humor as rich as autumn when the boughs and vines bend with the weight of ripened fruit, while the forests flame with scarlet, brown and gold. He had wit as quick and sharp as lightning, and like the lightning it filled the heavens with sudden light.

In his laughter there was logic, in his wit wisdom, and in his humor philosophy and philanthropy. He was a supreme artist. He painted pictures with words. He knew the strength, the velocity of verbs, the color, the light and shade of adjectives.

He was a sculptor in speech--changing stones to statues. He had in his heart the sacred something that we call sympathy. He pitied the unfortunate, the oppressed and the outcast His words were often wet with tears--tears that in a moment after were glorified by the light of smiles. All moods were his. He knew the heart, its tides and currents, its calms and storms, and like a skillful pilot he sailed emotion's troubled sea. He was neither solemn nor dignified, because he was neither stupid nor egotistic. He was natural, and had the spontaneity of winds and waves. He was the greatest orator of his time, the grandest that ever stood beneath our flag. Reverently I lay this leaf upon his grave.

A TRIBUTE TO ISAAC H. BAILEY.

New York, March 27, 1899.

MY FRIENDS: When one whom we hold dear has reached the end of life and laid his burden down, it is but natural for us, his friends, to pay the tribute of respect and love; to tell his virtues, to express our sense of loss and speak above the sculptured clay some word of hope.

Our friend, about whose bier we stand, was in the highest, n.o.blest sense a man. He was not born to wealth--he was his own providence, his own teacher. With him work was wors.h.i.+p and labor was his only prayer. He depended on himself, and was as independent as it is possible for man to be. He hated debt, and obligation was a chain that scarred his flesh. He lived a long and useful life. In age he reaped with joy what he had cown in youth. He did not linger "until his flame lacked oil," but with his senses keen, his mind undimmed, and with his arms filled with gathered sheaves, in an instant, painlessly, unconsciously, he pa.s.sed from happiness and health to the realm of perfect peace. We need not mourn for him, but for ourselves, for those he loved.

He was an absolutely honest man--a man who kept his word, who fulfilled his contracts, gave heaped and rounded measure and discharged all obligations with the fabled chivalry of ancient knights. He was absolutely honest, not only with others but with himself. To his last moment his soul was stainless. He was true to his ideal--true to his thought, and what his brain conceived his lips expressed. He refused to pretend. He knew that to believe without evidence was impossible to the sound and sane, and that to say you believed when you did not, was possible only to the hypocrite or coward. He did not believe in the supernatural. He was a natural man and lived a natural life. He had no fear of fiends. He cared nothing for the guesses of inspired savages; nothing for the threats or promises of the sainted and insane.

He enjoyed this life--the good things of this world--the clasp and smile of friends.h.i.+p, the exchange of generous deeds, the reasonable gratification of the senses--of the wants of the body and mind. He was neither an insane ascetic nor a fool of pleasure, but walked the golden path along the strip of verdure that lies between the deserts of extremes.

With him to do right was not simply a duty, it was a pleasure. He had philosophy enough to know that the quality of actions depends upon their consequences, and that these consequences are the rewards and punishments that no G.o.d can give, inflict, withhold or pardon.

He loved his country, he was proud of the heroic past, dissatisfied with the present, and confident of the future. He stood on the rock of principle. With him the wisest policy was to do right. He would not compromise with wrong. He had no respect for political failures who became reformers and decorated fraud with the pretence of philanthropy, or sought to gain some private end in the name of public good. He despised time-servers, trimmers, fawners and all sorts and kinds of pretenders.

He believed in national honesty; in the preservation of public faith.

He believed that the Government should discharge every obligation--the implied as faithfully as the expressed. And I would be unjust to his memory if I did not say that he believed in honest money, in the best money in the world, in pure gold, and that he despised with all his heart financial frauds, and regarded fifty cents that pretended to be a dollar, as he would a thief in the uniform of a policeman, or a criminal in the robe of a judge.

He believed in liberty, and liberty for all. He pitied the slave and hated the master; that is to say, he was an honest man. In the dark days of the Rebellion he stood for the right. He loved Lincoln with all his heart--loved him for his genius, his courage and his goodness. He loved Conkling--loved him for his independence, his manhood, for his unwavering courage, and because he would not bow or bend--loved him because he accepted defeat with the pride of a victor. He loved Grant, and in the temple of his heart, over the altar, in the highest niche, stood the great soldier.

Nature was kind to our friend. She gave him the blessed gift of humor.

This filled his days with the climate of Autumn, so that to him even disaster had its sunny side. On account of his humor he appreciated and enjoyed the great literature of the world. He loved Shakespeare, his clowns and heroes. He appreciated and enjoyed d.i.c.kens. The characters of this great novelist were his acquaintances. He knew them all; some were his friends and some he dearly loved. He had wit of the keenest and quickest. The instant the steel of his logic smote the flint of absurdity the spark glittered. And yet, his wit was always kind.

The flower went with the thorn. The targets of his wit were not made enemies, but admirers.

He was social, and after the feast of serious conversation he loved the wine of wit--the dessert of a good story that blossomed into mirth. He enjoyed games--was delighted by the relations of chance--the curious combinations of accident. He had the genius of friends.h.i.+p. In his nature there was no suspicion. He could not be poisoned against a friend.

The arrows of slander never pierced the s.h.i.+eld of his confidence. He demanded demonstration. He defended a friend as he defended himself.

Against all comers he stood firm, and he never deserted the field until the friend had fled. I have known many, many friends--have clasped the hands of many that I loved, but in the journey of my life I have never grasped the hand of a better, truer, more unselfish friend than he who lies before us clothed in the perfect peace of death. He loved me living and I love him now.

In youth we front the sun; we live in light without a fear, without a thought of dusk or night. We glory in excess. There is no dread of loss when all is growth and gain. With reckless hands we spend and waste and chide the flying hours for loitering by the way.

The future holds the fruit of joy; the present keeps us from the feast, and so, with hurrying feet we climb the heights and upward look with eager eyes. But when the sun begins to sink and shadows fall in front, and lengthen on the path, then falls upon the heart a sense of loss, and then we h.o.a.rd the shreds and crumbs and vainly long for what was cast away. And then with miser care we save and spread thin hands before December's half-fed flickering flames, while through the gla.s.s of time we moaning watch the few remaining grains of sand that hasten to their end. In the gathering gloom the fires slowly die, while memory dreams of youth, and hope sometimes mistakes the glow of ashes for the coming of another morn.

But our friend was an exception. He lived in the present; he enjoyed the suns.h.i.+ne of to-day. Although his feet had touched the limit of four-score, he had not reached the time to stop, to turn and think: about the traveled road. He was still full of life and hope, and had the interest of youth in all the affairs of men.

He had no fear of the future--no dread. He was ready for the end. I have often heard him repeat the words of Epicurus: "Why should I fear death?

If I am, death is not. If death is, I am not. Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?"

If there is, beyond the veil, beyond the night called death, another world to which men carry all the failures and the triumphs of this life; if above and over all there be a G.o.d who loves the right, an honest man has naught to fear. If there be another world in which sincerity is a virtue, in which fidelity is loved and courage honored, then all is well with the dear friend whom we have lost.

But if the grave ends all; if all that was our friend is dead, the world is better for the life he lived. Beyond the tomb we cannot see. We listen, but from the lips of mystery there comes no word. Darkness and silence brooding over all. And yet, because we love we hope. Farewell!

And yet again, Farewell!

And will there, sometime, be another world? We have our dream. The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the human heart, beating with its countless waves against the sands and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book or of any creed. It was born of affection. And it will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt and darkness, as long as love kisses the lips of death.

We have our dream!

JESUS CHRIST.

* An unfinished lecture which Colonel Ingersoll commenced a few days before his death.

FOR many centuries and by many millions of people, Christ has been wors.h.i.+ped as G.o.d. Millions and millions of eulogies on his character have been p.r.o.nounced by priest and layman, in all of which his praises were measured only by the limitations of language--words were regarded as insufficient to paint his perfections.