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NATIONAL SECUL^SOOErtZ ft?
Social Salvation
Jag Stttnon
BY
COLONEL R. G. INGERSOLL.
(Delivered on Nov. 14th, 1886.)
PRICE TWOPENCE.
PROGRESSIVE PUBLISHING COMPANY,
28 Stonecutter Street, E.O.
1889.
�LONDON :
PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY G. W. POOTE,
AT 28 STONECUTTER STREET, E.C.
�Social Salvation.
Ladies and Gentlemen,—
In the greatest tragedy that has ever been written
by man—in the fourth scene of the third act—is the
best prayer that I have ever read; and when I say “ the
greatest tragedy,” everybody familiar with Shakespeare
will know that I refer to “ King Lear.” After he has
been on the heath, touched with insanity, coming sud
denly to the place of shelter, he says :
I will pray first, and then I will sleep.”
And this prayer is my text :
“ Poor naked wretches, whereso’er you are,
That bide the pelting of this pitiless storm,
How shall your unhoused heads, your unfed sides,
Your looped and windowed raggedness, defend
From seasons such as this ? Oh, I have ta’en
Too little care of this. Take physic, pomp;
Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,
That thou may’st shake the superflux to them,
And show the heavens more just.”
That is one of the noblest prayers that ever fell from
human lips. If nobody has too much, everybody will
have enough I
I propose to say a few words upon subjects that are
near to us all, and in which every human being oughq.
to be interested—and if he is not, it may be that his wife
will be, it may be that his orphans will be ; and I would
like to see this world, at last, so that a man could die
and not feel that he left his wife and children a prey to
the greed, the avarice, or the necessities of mankind.
There is something wrong in our government where they
who do the most have the least. There is something
wrong when honesty wears a rag, and rascality a robe ;
when the loving, the tender, eat a crust, while the in
famous sit at the banquets. I cannot do much, but I can
at least sympathise with those who suffer. There is one
thing that we should remember at the start, and if I can
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Social Salvation.
only teach you that, to-night—unless you know it already
—I shall consider the few words I may have to say a
wonderful success.
I want you to remember that everybody is as he must
be. I want you to get out of your minds the old nonsense
of “ free moral agency ” ; then you will have charity for
the whole human race. When you know that they are
not responsible for their dispositions, any more than for
their height; not responsible for their acts, anv more than
they are for their dreams ; when you finally understand
the philosophy that everything exists by an efficient
cause, and that the lightest fancy that ever fluttered its
painted wings in the horizon of hope was as necessarily
produced as the planet that in its orbit wheels about the
sun—when you get to understand this, I believe you will
have charity for all mankind.
Wealth is not a crime; poverty is not a virtue—
although the virtuous have generally been poor. There
is only one good, and that is human happiness ; and he
only is a wise man who makes himself happy.
I have heard all my life about self-denial. There never
was anything more idiotic than that. No man who does
right practises self-denial. To do right is the bud, and
blossom, and fruit of wisdom. To do right should always
be dictated by the highest possible selfishness. No man
practises self-denial unless he does wrong. To inflict an
injury upon yourself is an act of self-denial. To plant
seeds that will forever bear the fruit of joy is not an act
of self-denial. So this idea of doing good to others only
for their sake is absurd. You want to do it, not simply
for their sake, but for your own ; because a perfectly
civilised man can never be perfectly happy while there
is one unhappy being in this universe.
Let us take another step. The barbaric world was
rewarded for acting sensibly. They were promised
rewards in another world if they would only have self
denial enough to be virtuous in this. If they would
forego the pleasures of larceny and murder ; if they
would forego the thrill and bliss of neanness here, they
would be rewarded hereafter for that self-denial. I have
exactly the opposite idea. Do right, not to deny your
self, but because you love yourself, and because you love
others. Be generous, because it is better for you. Be
�Social Salvation.
5
just, because any other course is the suicide of the soul.
Whoever does wrong plagues himself, and when he reaps
that harvest, he will find that he was not practising self
denial when he did right.
Now, then, as I say, if you want to be happy yourself,
if you are truly civilised, you want others to be happy.
Every man ought, to the extent of his ability, to increase
the happiness of mankind, for the reason that that will
increase his own. No one can be really prosperous un
less those with whom he lives share the sunshine and
the joy.
The first thing a man wants to know and be sure of is
when he has got enough. Most people imagine that the
rich are in heaven, but, as a rule, it is gilded hell. There
is not a man in the city of New York with genius enough,
with brains enough, to own five millions of dollars. Why?
The money will own him. He becomes the key to a safe.
That money will get him up at daylight; that money will
separate him from his friends ; that money will fill his
heart with fear ; that money will rob his days of sunshine
and his nights of pleasant dreams. He cannot own it.
He becomes the property of that money. And he goes
right on making more. What for ? He does not know.
It becomes a kind of insanity. No one is happiei’ in a
palace than in a cabin. I love to see a log house. It is
associated in my mind always with pure, unalloyed
happiness. It is the only house in the world that looks
as though it had no mortgage on it. It looks as if you
could spend there long, tranquil autumn days ; the air
filled with serenity ; no trouble, no thoughts about notes,
about interest—nothing of the kind; just breathing free
air, watching the hollyhocks, listening to the birds and
to the music of the spring that comes like a poem from
the earth.
It is an insanity to get more than you want. Imagine
a man in this city, an intelligent man, say, with two or
three millions of coats, eight or ten millions of hats, vast
warehouses full of shoes, billions of neckties, and imagine
that man getting up at four o’clock in the morning, in the
rain and snow and sleet, working like a dog all day to
get another necktie ? Is not that exactly what the man
of twenty or thirty millions, or of five millions, does
to-day ? Wearing his life out that somebody may say,
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Social Salvation.
“ How rich he is! ” What can he do with the surplus ?
Nothing. Can he eat it? No, Make friends? No.
Purchase flattery and lies ? Yes. Make all his poor
relations hate him? Yes. And then what worry I
Annoyed, his poor little brain inflamed, you see in the
morning paper “ Died of apoplexy.” This man finally
began to worry for fear he would not have enough to
live clear through.
So we ought to teach our children that great wealth is
a curse. Great wealth is the mother also of crime. On
the other hand are the poor. And let me ask to-night,
Is the world for ever to remain as it was when Lear
made his prayer ? Is it ever to remain as it is now ? I
hope not. Are there always to be millions whose lips
are white with famine ? Is the withered palm to be
always extended, imploring from the stony heart of
respectable charity, alms ? Must every man who sits
down to a decent dinner always think of the starving ?
Must everyone sitting by the fireside think of some poor
mother, with a child strained to her breast, shivering in
the storm ? I hope not. Are the rich always to be
divided from the poor.—not only in fact, but in feeling ?
And that division is growing more and more every day.
The gulf between Lazarus and Dives widens year by
year, only their positions are changed—Lazarus is in
hell, Dives is in the bosom of Abraham.
And there is one thing that helps to widen this gulf.
In nearly every city of the United States you will find
the fashionable part and the poor part. The poor know
nothing of the fashionable part, except the outside splen
dor ; and as they go by the palaces, that poison plant
called envy springs and grows in their poor hearts. The
rich know nothing of the poor, except the squalor and
rags and wretchedness, and what they read in the police
records, and they say, “ Thank God, we are not like
those people ! ” Their hearts are filled with scorn and
contempt, and the hearts of the others with envy and
hatred.
There must be some way devised for the rich
and poor to get acquainted. The poor do not know how
many well-dressed people sympathise with them, and
the rich do not know many noble hearts beat beneath
rags. If we can ever get the loving poor acquainted
�Social Salvation.
7
■with the sympathising rich, this question will be nearly
solved.
, T„
In a hundred other ways they are divided. It any
thing should bring mankind together it ought to be a
conn in on belief. In Catholic countries that does have a
softening influence upon the rich and upon the poor.
They believe the same. So in Mohammedan countries
they can kneel in the same mosque, and pray to the
same God. But how is it with us ? The Church is not
free. There is no welcome in the velvet for the rags.
Poverty does not feel at home there, and the con sequence
is, the rich and poor are kept apart, even by their religion.
I am not saying anything against religion, I am not on
that question, but I would think more of any religion
provided that even for one day in the week, or for one
hour in the day, it allowed wealth to clasp the hand of
poverty, and to have, for one moment even, the thrill of
genuine friendship.
In the olden times, in barbaric life, it was a simple
thing to get a living. A little hunting, a little fishing,
pulling a little fruit, and digging for roots—all simple ;
and they were nearly all on an equality, and comparatively
there were fewer failures. Living has at last become
complex. All the avenues are filled with men struggling
for the accomplishment of the same thing.
(l Emulation hath a thousand sons that
One by one pursue ; and if you hedge from
The direct forthright, they, like an entered tide,
All sweep by and leave you hindmost. Or, like
A gallant horse, fallen in the front rank, „
You become pavement for the abject rear.”
The struggle is so hard. And justjexactly as we have
risen in the scale of being, the per cent of failures has
increased. It is so that all men are not capable of getting
a living.
They have not cunning enough, intellect
enough, muscle enough—they are not strong enough.
They are too generous, or they are too negligent and
then some people seem to have what is called ‘ bad
luck”—that is to say, when anything falls they are
under it; when anything bad happens it happens to them.
And now there is another trouble. Just as life becomes
complex and as everyone is trying to. accomplish
certain objects, all the ingenuity of the brain is at work
�Social Salvation.
to get there by a shorter way, and, in consequence, this
has become an age of invention. Myriads of machines
have been invented—every one of them to save labor.
If these machines helped the laborer, what a blessing
they would be !
But the laborer does not own the
machine ; the machine owns him. That is the trouble.
In the olden time, when I was a boy, even, you know
how it was in the little towns. There was a shoemaker
—two of them—a tailor or two, a blacksmith, a wheel
wright. I remember just how the shops used to look.
I used to go to the blacksmith shop at night, get up on
the forge, and hear them talk about turning horse-shoes.
Many a night have I seen the sparks fly and heard the
stories that were told. There was a great deal of human
nature in those days ! Everybody was known. If times
got hard, the poor little shoemakers made a living
mending, half-soling, straightening up the heels. The
same with the blacksmith ; the same with the tailor.
They could get credit—they did not have to pay till the
next January, and if the could not pay then, they took
another year, and they were happy enough. Now, one
man is not a; shoemaker. There is a great building—
several hundred thousand dollars’ worth of machinery,
three or four thousand people—not a single mechanic in
the whole building. One sews on straps, another greases
the machines, cuts out soles, waxes threads. And what
is the result? When the machines stop, three thousand
men are out of employment. Credit goes. Then come
want and famine, and if they happen to have a little
child .die, it would take them years to save enough of
their earnings to pay the expense of putting away that
little sacred piece of flesh. And yet, by this machinery
we can. produce enough to flood the world. By the
inventions in agricultural machinery the United States
can feed all 'he mouths upon the earth. There is not a
thing that man uses that can not instantly be over
produced to such an extent as to become almost worth
less ; and yet, with all this production, with all this
power to create, there are millions and mHlions in abject
want. Granaries bursting, and famine looking into the
doors of the poor! Millions of everything, and yet
millions wanting everything and having substantially
nothing!
�Social Salvation.
9
Now, there is something wrong there. We have got
into that contest between machines and men, and if ex- .
travagance does not keep pace with ingenuity, it is
going to be the most terrible question that man has ever
settled. I tell you, to-night, that these things are worth
thinking about. Nothing that touches the future of our
race, nothing that touches the happiness of ourselves or
our children, should be beneath our notice. We should
think of these things—must think of them—and we
should endeavor to see what justice is finally done
between man and man.
My sympathies are with the poor. My sympathies
are with the working men of the United States. Under
stand me distinctly. I am not an Anarchist. Anarchy
is the reaction from tyranny. I am not a Socialist. I
am not a Communist. I am an Individualist. I do not
believe in tyranny of government, but I do believe
in justice as between man and man.
What is the remedy ? Or, what can we think of—for
do not imagine that I think I know. It is an immense,
and almost infinite, question, and all we can do is to
guess. You have heard a great deal lately upon the
land subject. Let us say a word or two upon that. In
the first place I do not want to take, and I would not
take, an inch of land from any human being that belongs
to him. If we ever take it, we must pay for it—condemn
it and take it—do not rob anybody. Whenever any man
advocates justice, and robbery as the means, I suspect
him.
No man should be allowed to own any land that he •
does not use. Everybody knows that—I do not care
whether he has thousands or millions. I have owned a
great deal of land, but I know just as well as I know I
am living that I should not be allowed to have it unless
I use it. And why ? Don’t you know that if people
could bottle the air, they would ? Don’t you know that
there would be an American Air-bottling Association ?
And don’t you know that they would allow thousands
and millions to die for want of breath, if they could not
pay for air? I am not blaming anybody. I am just
telling how it is. Now, the land belongs to the children
of Nature. Nature invites every babe that is born into
this world. And what would you think of me, for
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instance, to-night, if I had invited you here—nobody
had cha rged you anything, but you had been invited—
and when you got here you had found one man pre
tending to occupy a hundred seats, another fifty, and
another seventy-five, and thereupon you were compelled
to stand up—what would you think of the invitation ?
It seems to me that every child of nature is entitled to
his share of the land, and that he should not be compelled
to beg the previlege to work the soil, of a babe that
happened to be born before him. And why do I say
this ? Because it is not to our interest to have a few
landlords and millions of tenants..
The tenement house is the enemy of modesty, the
enemy of virtue, the enemy of patriotism. Home is
where the virtues grow. I would like to see the law so
that every home, to a small amount, should be free, not
only from sale for debts, but should be absolutely free
from taxation,' so that every man could have a home.
Then we will have a nation of patriots.
Now suppose that every man were to have all the
land he is able to buy. The Vanderbilts could buy to
day all the land that is in farms in the state of Ohio—
every foot of it. Would it be for the best interest of that
state to have a few landlords and four or five millions of
serfs ? So, I am in favor of a law finally to be carried
out—not by robbery but by compensation, under the
right, as the lawyers call it, of eminent domain—so that
no person should be allowed to own more land than. he
uses. I am not blaming these rich men for being rich.
I pity the most of them. I had rather be poor with a
little sympathy in my heart, than to be rich as all the
mines of the earth and not have that little flower of pity
in my breast. I do not see how a man can have hundreds
of millions and pass every day people that have not
enough to eat. I do not understand it. I presume I
would be just the same way myself. There is something
in money that dries up the sources of affection, and the
probability is, it is this : the moment a man gets .money,
so many men are trying to get it away from him that
in a little while he regards the whole human race as his
enemy, and he generally thinks that they could be rich,
too, if they would only attend to business as he has.
Understand, I am not blaming these people. There is a
�Social Salvation.
11
good deal of human nature in us all. You. remember
the story of the man who made a speech at a Socialist
meeting, and closed it by saying “ Thank God, I am no
monopolist,” but as he sank to his seat said, But I wish
to the Lord I was I” We must remember that these rich
men are naturally produced. Do not blame them, blame
the system I
Certain privileges have been granted to the few by the
Government, ostensibly for the benefit of the many ,
and whenever that grant is not for the good of the
many, it should be taken from the few—not by force,
not by robbery, but by estimating fairly the value of
that property, and paying to them its value, because
everything should be done according to law and in
order.
What remedy, then, is there ? First, the great weapon
in this country is the ballot. Each voter is a sovereign.
There the poorest is the equal of the richest. His vote
will count just as many as though the hand that cast it
controlled millions. The poor are in the majority in this
country. If there is any law that oppresses them, it is
their fault. They have followed the fife and drum of
some party. They have been misled by others. No
man should go an inch with a party—no matter if. that
party is half the world and has in it the greatest intel
lects of the earth—unless that party is going his way.
No honest man should ever turn round and join any
thing. If it overtakes him, good. If he has to hurry up
a little to get to it, good. But do not go with anything
that is not going your way ; no matter whether they call
it Republican, or Democrat, or Progressive Democracy
—do not go with it unless it goes your way.
The ballot is the power. The law should settle these
questions—between capital and labor—many of them ;
but I expect the greatest good to come from civilisation,
from the growth of a sense of justice ; for I tell you,
to-night, a civilised man will never want anything for
less than it is worth ; a civilised man, when he sells a
thing, will never want more than it is worth ; a really
and truly civilised man would rather be cheated than to
cheat. And yet, in the United States, good as we are,
nearly everybody wants to get everything for a little less
than it is worth, and the man who sells it to him wants
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Social Salvation.
to get a little more than it is worth, and this breeds ras
cality on both sides. That ought to be done away with.
There is one step toward it that we will take : we will
finally say that human flesh, human labor, shall not
depend entirely on “supply and demand.” That is
infinitely cruel. Every man should give to another
according to his ability to give, and enough that he may
make his Jiving and lay|something by for the winter of
old age.
Go to England. Civilised country they call it. It is
not. It never was. I am afraid it never will be. Go
to London, the greatest city of this world, where there
is the. most wealth, the greatest glittering piles of gold.
And yet one out of every six in that city dies in a hos
pital, a workhouse, or a prison. Is that the best that we
are ever to know ? Is that the last word that civilisa
tion has to say ? Look at the women in this town sewing
for a living, making cloaks that sell for 45 dollars for
less than 45 cents! Right here—here, amid all the
palaces, amid the thousands of millions of property—
here ! Is that all that civilisation can do ? Must a poor
woman support herself or her child, or her children, by
that kind of labor, and do we call ourselves civilised ?
Did you ever read that wonderful poem about the sewing
woman ? Let me tell you the last verse :
“ Winds that have sainted her, tell ye the story
Of the young life by the needle that bled,
Making a bridge over death’s soundless waters,
Out of a swaying, soul-cutting thread—•
Over it going, all the world knowing
That thousands have trod it, foot-bleeding, before :
God protect all of us, should she look back
From the opposite shore ! ”
I cannot call this civilisation. There must be some
thing nearer a fairer division in this world
You can never get it by strikes. Never. The first
strike that is a great success will be the last strike,
because the people who believe in law and order will put
it down when they think it approaches success.. It is no
remedy. Boycotting is no remedy. Brute force is no
remedy. This has got to be settled by reason, by candor,
by intelligence, by kindness; and nothing is perma
nently settled in this world that has not for its corner
�Social Salvation.
13
Stone justice, and is not protected by the profound
conviction of the human mind.
This is no country for Anarchy, no country for Com
munism, no country for the Socialist. Why ? Because
the political power is equally divided. ‘What other
reason ? Speech is free. What other ? The press is
untrammeled. And that is all that the right should
ever ask—a free press, free speech, and the protection
of person. That is enough. That is all I ask. In a
country like Russia, where every mouth is a bastile and
every tongue a convict, there may be some excuse.
Where the nobles and the best are driven to Siberia,
there may be a reason for the Nihilist. In a country
where no man is allowed to petition for redress, there
is a reason, but not here. This—say what you will
against it—this is the best government ever founded by
the human race I Say what you will of parties, say
what you will of dishonesty, the holiest flag that ever
kissed the air is ours!
Only a few years ago morally we were a low people—
before we abolished slavery—but now, when there is no
chain except that of custom, when every man has an
opportunity, this is the grandest government of the
earth. There is hardly a man in the United States to
day of any importance, whose voice anybody cares to
hear, who was not nursed at the loving breast of poverty.
Look at the children of the rich. My God, what a
punishment for being rich ! So, whatever happens, let
every man say that this government, and this form of
government, shall stand.
“ But,” say some, “ these working men are dangerous.”
I deny it. We are all in their power. They run all the
cars. Our lives are in their hands almost every day.
They are working in all our homes. They do the
labor of this world. We are all at their mercy, and yet
they do not commit more crimes, according to
number, than the rich. Remember that. I am not
afraid of them. Neither am I afraid of the monopolists,
because, under our institutions, when they become hurt
ful to the general good, the people will stand it just to a
certain point, and then comes the end—not in anger,
not in hate, but from a love of liberty and justice.
Now, we have in this country another class. We call
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Social Salvation.
them “ criminals.” Let us take another step. It is not
enough to raise the feeble up. We must support them
after. Recollect what I said in the first place—that
every man is as he must be. Every crime is a necessary
product. The seeds were all sown, the land thoroughly
plowed, the crop well attended to, and carefully har
vested. Every crime is born of necessity. If you want
less crime, you must change the conditions. Poverty
makes crime. Want, rags, crusts, failure, misfortune—
all these awake the wild beast in man, and finally he
takes, and takes contrary to law, and becomes a criminal.
And what do you do with him? You punish him.
Why not punish a man for having the consumption ?
The time will come when you will see that that is just
as logical. What do you do with the criminal ? You
send him to the penitentiary. Is he made better ?
Worse. The first thing you do is to try to trample out
his manhood, by putting an indignity upon him. You
mark him.- You put him in stripes. At night you put
him in darkness. His feelings for revenge grow. You
make a wild beast of him, and he comes out of that
place branded in body and soul, and then you won’t Jet
him reform if he wants to. You put on airs above him,
because he has been in the penitentiary. The next time
you try to put on airs over a convict, let me beg of you
to do one thing. Maybe you are not as bad as I am, but
do one thing ; think of all the crimes you have wanted
to commit; think of all the crimes you would have
committed if you had had the opportunity ; think of all
the temptations to which you would have yielded had
nobody been looking ; and then put your hand on your
heart and say whether you can justly look with scorn
and contempt even upon a convict. None but the
noblest should inflict punishment, even on the basest.
Society has no right to punish any man in revenge—no
right to punish any man except for two objects—-one,
the prevention of crime ; the other the reformation of
tne criminal. How can you reform him ? Kindness
is the sunshine in which virtue grows.
Let it be
understood by these men that there is no revenge, let it
be understand too that they can reform. Only a little
while ago I read of a young man who had been in a
penitentiary and came out. He kept* it a secret, and
■
�Social Salvation.
15
went to work for a farmer. He got in love with the
daughter, and wanted to marry her. He had nobility
enough to tell the truth—he told the father that he had
been in the penitentiary. The father said, “ You cannot
have my daughter, because it would stain her life.”
The young man said, “Yes, it would stain her life,
therefore I will not marry her.” In a few moments
afterward they heard the report of a pistol, and he was
dead. He left just a little note, saying, “lam through.
There is no need of my living longer, when I stain with
my life the ones I love.” And yet we call our society
civilised. There is a mistake.
I want that question thought of. I want all my
fellow-citizens to think of it. I want you to do what
you can to do away with all unnecessary cruelty. There
are, of course, some cases that have to be treated with
what might be called almost cruelty ; but if there is the
smallest seed of good in any human heart, let kindness
fall upon it until it grows, and in that way I know, and
so do you, that the world will get better and better day
by day.
Let us, above all things, get acquainted with each
other. Let every man teach his son, teach his daughter,
that labor is honorable. Let us teach our children. It
is your business to see that you never become a burden
on others. Your first duty is to take care of yourselves,
and, if there is a surplus, with that surplus help your
fellow-man ; that you owe it to yourself above all things
not to be a burden upon others. Teach your son
that it is not only his duty, but his highest joy, to
become a home-builder, a home-owner. Teach your
children that by the fireside is the real and true happi
ness of this world. Teach them that whoever is an idler,
whoever lives upon the labor of others, whether he is a
pirate or a king, is a dishonorable person. Teach them
that no civilised man wants anything for nothing, or for
less than it is worth; that he wants to go through this
world paying his way as he goes, and if he gets a little
ahead, an extra joy, it should be divided with another, if
that other is doing something for himself. Help others
to help themselves.
And let us teach that great wealth is not great happi
ness ; that money will not purchase love ; it never did,
�16
Social Salvation.
and never can, purchase respect; it never did, and never
can, purchase the highest happiness. I believe with
Robert Burns :
“ If happiness have not her seat
And centre in the breast,
We may be wise, or rich, or great,
But never can be blest.”
We must teach this, and let our fellow-citizens know that
we give them every right that we claim for ourselves.
We must discuss these questions and have charity, and
we will have it whenever we have the philosophy that all
men are as they must be, and that intelligence and kind
ness are the only levers capable of raising mankind.
Then there is another thing. Let each one be true to
himself. No matter what his class, no matter what his
circumstances, let him tell his thought. Don’t let his
class bribe him. Don’t let him talk like a banker because
he is a banker. Don’t let him talk like the rest of the
merchants, because he is a merchant. Let him be true
to the human race instead of to his little business—be
true to the ideal in his heart and brain, instead of to his
little present and apparent selfishness—let him have a
larger and more intelligent selfishness, not a narrow and
ignorant one.
So far as I am concerned, I have made up my mind
that no organisation, secular or religious, shall own me.
I have made up my mind that no necessity of bread, or
roof, or raiment shall ever put a padlock on my lips. I
have made up my mind that no hope, no preferment, no
honor, no wealth, shall ever make me for one moment
swerve from what I really believe, no matter whether it
is to my immediate interest, as one would think, or not.
And while I live, I am going to do what little I can to
help my fellow-men who have not been as fortunate as
I have been. I shall talk on their side, I shall vote on
their side, and do what little I can to convince men that
happiness does not lie in the direction of great wealth,
but in the direction of achievement for the good of them
selves and for the good of their fellow-men. I shall do
what little I can to hasten the day when this earth shall
be covered with homes, and when by the fireside of the
world shall sit happy fathers and mothers and children.
Printed and Published by G. W. Foote, at 28 Stonecutter Street, London, E.O.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
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Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Social salvation : a lay sermon
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 19 cm.
Notes: No. 44e in Stein checklist, but dated 1889. Lecture likely to have been given November 14th, 1886. [Information from WorldCat]. Printed and published by G.W. Foote. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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Progressive Publishing Company
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1889
Identifier
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N396
N397
Subject
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Social problems
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Social salvation : a lay sermon), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
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English
NSS
Social Problems-United States