hrough all that crawls, and swims, and floats, and
runs, and growls, and barks, and howls, until it struck this fellow in
the dug-out. And then that fellow in the dugout getting a little
grander, and each one below calling every one above him a heretic,
calling every one who had made a little advance an infidel or an
atheist, and finally the heads getting a little higher and looming up a
little grander and more splendidly, and finally produced Shakespeare,
who harvested all the field of dramatic thought and from whose day
until now there have been none but gleaners of chaff and straw.
Shakespeare was an intellectual ocean whose waves touched all the
shores of human thought, within which were all the tides and currents
and pulses upon which lay all the lights and shadows, and over which
brooded all the calms, and swept all the storms and tempests of which
the soul is capable. I would rather belong to that race that commenced
with that skull-less vertebrate; that produced Shakespeare, a race that
has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress leaning
from the far horizon, beckoning men forward and upward forever. I
would rather belong to that race than to have descended from a perfect
pair upon which the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to
this.

Now, my crime has been this: I have insisted that the Bible is not the
word of God. I have insisted that we should not whip our children. I
have insisted that we should treat our wives as loving equals. I have
denied that God--if there is any God--ever upheld polygamy and slavery.
I have denied that that God ever told his generals to kill innocent
babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war. I have denied
that and for that I have been assailed by the clergy of the United
States. They tell me I have misquoted; and I owe it to you, and maybe
I owe it to myself, to read one or two words to you upon this subject.
In order to do that I shall have to put on my glasses; and that brings
me back to where I started--that man has advanced just in proportion as
his thought has mingled with his labor. If man's eyes hadn't failed he
would never have made any spectacles, he would never have had the
telescope, and he would never have been able to read the leaves of
Heaven.

COL. INGERSOLL'S REPLY TO DR. COLLYER.

Now, they tell me--and there are several gentlemen who have spoken on
this subject--the Rev. Mr. Collyer, a gentleman stand