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Text
NATIONAL SECULAR SOCIETY
Spoken on Memorable
©ccaoíono W
JOHN HEYWOOD,
RIDGEFIELD & DEANSGATE, MANCHESTER
ii Paternoster Buildings, London.
Price Twopence.
�The Destroyer of Weeds, Thistles, and Thorns is a
Benefactor, 'whether he soweth grain or not.
Interpolations are the foundation Stones of every
orthodox church.
let the Ghosts go. We will worship them no more.
Let them cover their eyeless sockets with theirfleshlcss
hands, andfade forever from the imaginations of men.
Liberty sustains the same relation to Mind that Space
does to Matter.
To Plough is to Pray, to Plant is to Prophesy, and
the Harvest answers andfulfils.
�Zbc Ipaet rises before me like
a Dream,
EXTRACT FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT TIIE
SOLDIERS’ REUNION AT INDIANAPOLIS, 1876,
HE past rises before me like a dream. Again we
•L are in the great struggle for national life. We
hear the sounds of preparation—the music of boisterous
drums—the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see
thousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of
orators ; we see the pale cheeks of women, and the
flushed faces of men ; and in those assemblages we see
all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers.
We lose sight of them no more. We are with them
when they enlist in the great army of freedom. We
see them part with those they love. Some are walk
ing for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the
maidens they adore. We hear the whisperings and
the sweet vows of eternal love as they lingeringly part
forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing
babes that are asleep. Some are receiving the bless
ings of old men. Some are parting with mothers who
hold them and press them to their hearts again and
again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and
kisses—divine mingling of agony and love ! And
�(4)
some are talking with wives, and endeavoring with
brave words, spoken in the old tones, to drive from
their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We
ee the wife standing in the door with the babe in her
arms—standing in the sunlight sobbing—at the turn of
the road a hand waves—she answers by holding high
in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.
We see them all as they march away under the
flaunting flags, keeping time to the grand, wild music
of war—marching down the streets of the great cities—
through the towns and across the prairies—down to
the fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.
We go with them, one and all. We are by their
side on all the gory fields—in all the hospitals of pain
—on all the weary marches. We stand guard with
them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We
are with them in ravines running with blood—in the
furrows of old fields. We are with them between
contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst,
the life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves.
We see them pierced by balls and torn with shells, in
the trenches, by forts, and in the whirlwind of the
charge, where men become iron, with nerves of steel.
We are with them in the prisons of hatred and
famine; but human speech can never tell us what
they endured.
We are at home when the news comes that they are
dead. We see the maiden in the shadow of her first
sorrow.
We see the silvered head of the old man
bowed with the last grief.
The past rises before us, and we see four millions of
human beings governed by the lash—we see them
bound hand and foot—we hear the strokes of cruel
whips—we see the hounds tracking women through
�(5)
tangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts
of mothers. Cruelty unspeakable ! Outrage infinite !
Four million bodies in chains—four million souls in
fetters. All the sacred relations of wife, mother,
father and child are trampled beneath the brutal feet
of might. And all this was done under our own
beautiful banner of the free.
The past rises before us. We hear the roar and
shriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall.
These heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we
see men and women and children. The wand of
progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen,
the whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and
school-houses and books, and where all was want and
crime and cruelty and fear we see the faces of the free.
These heroes are dead. They died for liberty—
they died for us. They are at rest. They sleep in
the land they made free, under the flag they made
stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the
tearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep
beneath the shadows of the clouds, careless alike of
sunshine or of storm, each in the windowless palace of
Rest. Earth may run red with other wars—they are
at peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of con
flict, they found the serenity of death. I have one
sentiment for soldiers living and dead : Cheers for the
living ; tears for the dead.
�Ube Volunteer Soldiers of tbe
Union Hrmp;
“ I ¡’hose Valour and Patriotism gave to the world
a Government of the people, by the people, for
the people. ”
RESPONSE TO THE TOAST AT THE GRAND BANQUET
OE THE RE-UNION OF THE ARMY OF THE TENNESSEE,
CHICAGO, NOV, I3TH, 1878.
HEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism
of the chain, and the insanity of secession con
fronted the civilisation of our century, the question,
“ Will the great Republic defend itself?” trembled on
tlie lips of every lover of mankind. The North, filled
with intelligence and wealth, products of liberty, mar
shalled her hosts and asked only for a leader.
From civil life a man, silent, thoughtful, poised, and
calm, stepped forth, and with the lips of victory voiced
the nation’s first and last demand : “ Unconditional
and immediate surrender. ” From that moment the end
was known. That utterance was the real declaration
of real war, and in accordance with the dramatic unities
of mighty events, the great soldier who made it received
the final sword of the rebellion. The soldiers of therepublic were not seekers after vulgar glory ; they were
W
�(7)
not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of
conquest. They fought to preserve the homestead of
liberty, and that their children might have peace. They
were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers of pre
judice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the
future they saluted the monsters of their time. They
finished what the soldiers of the Revolution commenced.
They relighted the torch that fell from their august
hands, and filled the world again with light. They
blotted from the statute-books the laws that had been
passed by hypocrites at the instigation of robbers, and
tore with indignant hands from the Constitution that
infamous clause that made men the catchers of their
fellow-men. They made it possible for judges to be
just and statesmen to be human. They broke the
shackles from the limbs of slaves, from the souls of
masters, and from the Northern brain. They kept our
country on the map of the world and our flag in heaven.
They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress,
and found therein two angels clad in shining gar
ments—nationality and liberty.
The soldiers were the saviours of the nation. They
were the liberators of man. In writing the proclama
tion of emancipation, Lincoln, greatest of our mighty
dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air
when reapers sing ’mid gathered sheaves, copied with
the pen what Grant and his brave comrades wrote with
swords.
Grander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman,
the soldiers of the Republic, with patriotism as shore
less as the air, battled for the rights of others, for the
nobility of labour; fought that mothers might own
their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the
back of patient toil, that our country should not be a
�(8)
many-headed monster, made of warring States, but a
nation—sovereign, great and free.
Blood was water, money was leaves, and life was
only common air, until one flag floated over the Repub
lic without a master and without a slave. Then was
asked the question: Will a free people tax themselves
to pay the nation’s debt ? The soldiers went home to
their waiting wives, to their glad children, and to the
girls they loved. They went back to the fields, the
shops, and mines. They had not been demoralized.
They had been ennobled. They were as honest in
peace as they were brave in war. Mocking at poverty,
laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They
said, “We saved the nation’s life, and what is life with
out honour ? ” They worked and wrought with all of
labour’s royal sons that every pledge the nation gave
might be redeemed. And their great leader, having
put a shining band of friendship, a girdle of clasped
and happy hands around the globe, comes home and
finds that every promise made in war has now the ring
and gleam of gold.
And now let us drink to the volunteers. To those
who sleep in unknown, sunken graves ; whose names
are only in the hearts of those they loved and left, of
those who often hear in happy dreams the footsteps of
return. Let us drink to those who died while lipless
famine mocked. One to all the maimed whose scars
give modesty a tongue, and all who dared and gave to
chance the care, the keeping of their lives ; to all the
dead ; to Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant, the
foremost soldier of the world ; and last, to Lincoln,
whose loving life, like a bow of peace, spans and
arches all the clouds of war.
�1776.
^Declaration of Jnbepenbence.
ONE HUNDRED YEARS AGO OUR FATHERS RETIRED
THE GODS FROM POLITICS.
T has been a favourite idea with me that our fore
fathers were educated by Nature; that they grew
grand as the continent upon which they landed ; that
the great rivers—the wide plains—the splendid lakes
—the lonely forests—the sublime mountains—that all
these things stole into and became a part of their be
ing, and they grew great as the country in which they
lived. - They began to hate the narrow, contracted
views of Europe. They were educated by their sur
roundings, and every little colony had to be, to a cer
tain extent, a republic. The kings of the old world
endeavoured to parcel out this land to their favourites.
But there were too many Indians. There was too
much courage required for them to take and keep it,
and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied
with the old country—who were dissatisfied with Eng
land, dissatisfied with France, with Germany, with
Ireland, and Holland. The king’s favourites stayed at
home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of
certain principles they entertained and held dearer than
life. And they were willing to work, willing to fell the
forests, to fight the savages, willing to go through all
I
�10)
the hardships, perils and dangers of a new country, of
a new land; and the consequence was that our country
was settled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men
who had opinions of their own and were willing to live
in the wild forests for the sake of expressing those
opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees,
rocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old
world came to the new.
These grand men were enthusiasts ; and the world
has only been raised by enthusiasts. In every country
there have been a few who have given a national aspir
ation to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the
builders and framers of this great and splendid govern
ment ; and they were the men who saw, although
others did not, the golden fringe of the mantle of glory
that will finally cover this world. They knew, they
felt, they believed that they would give a new constel
lation to the political heavens—that they would make
the Americans a grand people—grand as the continent
on which they lived. .
Only a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall
—in that little room where was signed the immortal
paper, A little room, like any other; and it did not
seem possible that from that room went forth ideas,
like cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings
over a continent, and touching as with holy fire, the
hearts of men.
In a few minutes I was in the park, where are gath
ered the accomplishments of a century. Our fathers
never dreamed of the things I saw. There were hun
dreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and
breath of flame—every kind of machine, with whirling
wheels and curious cogs and cranks, and the myriad
thoughts of men that have been wrought in iron, brass
�(11)
and steel. And going out from- one little building
were wires in the air, stretching to every civilized na
tion, and they could send a shining messenger in a
moment to any part of the world, and it would go
sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts
and words within its glowing heart. I saw all that
had been achieved by this nation, and I wished that
the signers of the Declaration—the soldiers of the
revolution—could see what a century of freedom has
produced. I wished they could see the fields we culti
vate—the rivers we navigate—the railroads running
over the Alleghanies, far into what was then the un
known forest—on over the broad prairies—on over
the vast plains—away over the mountains of the W est,
to the Golden Gate of the Pacific.
What has made this country- ? I say again, liberty
and labour. What would we be without labour ? I
want every farmer, when ploughing the rustling corn
of June—while mowing in the perfumed fields—to feel
that he is adding to the wealth and glory of the United
States. I want every mechanic—every man of toil, to
know and feel that he is keeping the cars running, the
telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the statues
and painting the pictures; that he is writing and print
ing the books ; that he is helping to fill the world with
honour, with happiness, with love and law.
Our country is founded upon the dignity of labour—
upon the equality of man. Ours is the first real repub
lic in the history of the world. Beneath our flag the
people are free. We have retired the gods from po
litics. We have found that man is the only source of
political power, and that the governed should govern.
We have disfranchised the aristocrats of the air, and
have given one country to mankind.
�Ht a brother's (Brave»
HON. EBON C. INGERSOLL, DIED AT WASHINGTON,
JUNE 2ND, 1879.
Y FRIENDS : I am going to do that which
the dead often promised he would do for me.
The loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend,
died where manhood’s morning almost touches noon,
and while the shadows still were falling toward the
West. He had not passed on life’s highway the stone
that marks the highest point, but being weary for a
moment he laid down by the wayside, and, using his
burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that
kisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with
life and raptured with the world, he passed to silence
and pathetic dust. Yet, after all, it may be best; just
in the happiest, sunniest hour of all the voyage, while
eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash against the
unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar—
a sunken ship. For, whether in mid-sea or among
the breakers of the farther shore, a wreck must mark
at last the end of each and all. And every life, no
matter if its every hour is rich with love, and every
moment jewelled with a joy, will, at its close, become
a tragedy, as sad, and deep, and dark as can be woven
of the warp and woof of mystery and death. This
brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak
and rock, but in the sunshine he was vine and flower.
M
�(13)
He was the friend of all heroic souls. He climbed
the heights and left all superstitions far below, while
on his forehead fell the golden dawning of a grander
day. He loved the beautiful, and was with colour,
form and music touched to tears. He sided with the
weak, and with a willing hand gave alms ; with loyal
heart and with the purest mind he faithfully discharged
all public trusts. He was a worshipper of liberty and
a friend of the oppressed. A thousand times I have
heard him quote the words : “ For justice all place a
temple, and all season summer.” He believed that
happiness was the only good, reason the only torch,
justice the only worshipper, humanity the only religion,
and love the priest.
He added to the sum of human joy; and were every
one for whom he did some loving service to bring a
blossom to his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath
a wilderness of flowers. Life is a narrow vale between
the cold and barren peaks of two eternities. We
strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry
aloud, and the only answer is the echo of our wailing
cry. From the voiceless lips of the unreplying dead
there comes no word ; but in the night of death hope
sees a star, and listening love hears the rustle of a wing.
He who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the ap
proach of death for the return of health, whispered’with
his latest breath, “ I am better now.” Let us believe,
in spite of doubts and dogmas and fears and tears, that
these dear words are true of all the countless dead.
And now, to you, who have been chosen from among
the many men he loved to do the last sad office for the
dead, we give his sacred dust. Speech cannot contain
our love. There was—there is—no gentler, stronger,
manlier man.
�Whence and Whither,
SPOKEN AT THE GRAVE OF A CHILD.
JAN. 1882.
/T Y FRIENDS : I know how vain it is to gild a
' X grief with words, and yet I wish to take from
every grave its fear. Here, in this world, where life
and death' are equal kings, all should be brave enough
to meet what all the dead have met. The future has
been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heart
less past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds
fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth
the patriarchs and babes sleep side by side. Why
should we fear that which will come to all that is ? We
cannot tell; we do not know which is the greater bless
ing—life or death. We cannot say that death is not a
good. We do not know whether the grave is the end
of this life or the door of another, or whether the night
here is not somewhere else a dawn. Neither can we
tell which is the more fortunate—the child dying in its
mother’s arms, before its lips have learned to form a
word, or he who journeys all the length of life’s uneven
road, painfully taking the last slow steps with staff and
crutch.
Every cradle asks us, “ Whence ? ” and every coffin,
“ Whither ? ” The poor barbarian, weeping above his
dead, can answer these questions as intelligently and
K
�(15)
satisfactorily as the robed priest of the most authentic
creed. The tearful ignorance of the one is just as con
soling as the learned and unmeaning words of the
other. No man, standing where the horizon of life
has touched a grave, has any right to prophesy a future
filled with pain and tears. It may be that death gives
all there is of worth to life. If those we press and
strain against our hearts could never die, perhaps that
love would wither from the earth. May be this com
mon fate treads from out the paths between our hearts
the weeds of selfishness and hate, and I had rather live
and love where death is king than have eternal life
where love is not. Another life is naught unless we
know and love again the ones who love us here.
They who’stand here with breaking hearts around
this little grave need have no fear. The larger and
nobler faith in all that is and is to be, tells us that
death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest. We
know that through the common wants of life—the
needs and duties of each hour—their grief will lessen
day by day, until this grave will be to them a place of
rest and peace—almost of joy. There is for them this
consolation: the dead do not suffer. If they live again,
their lives will surely be as good as ours.
We have no fear. We are all children of the same
mother, and the same fate awaits us all. We, too,
have our religion, and it is this: Help for the living—
Hope for the dead.
�Ube ZJlbost IRematbable discourses
ot tbe da&.
BY COL. ROBERT G. INGERSOLL,
America's Greatest Orator.
MISTAKES OF MOSES....................................... 3^
GODS; PAST AND PRESENT........................... id
GREAT INFIDELS..................................................id
SALVATION; HERE AND HEREAFTER....id
SPIRIT OF THE AGE, or, modern thinkers...id
COL. INGERSOLL AT HOME........................... id
REPLY TO TALMAGE......................................... 2d
PROSE POEMS......................................................... 2d
HELL........................................................................... 2d
------------------ —COO----------------—
Also a limited number of Copies, Handsome
Edition, 64 pages, Price Sixpence.
Ube (Sboets,
FUwo studies in ^Biblical Rumour,
BY
D. M. BENNETT,
Editor of the New-York “ Truthseeker.”
THE GREAT WRESTLING MATCH.............. id
DIVINE PYROTECHNY...................................... id
'•
fo.
TRADE SUPPLIED BY
JOHN KEYWOOD,
Ridgefield & Deansgate, Manchester.
11 Paternoster Buildpngs, London.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
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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>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Pamphlet
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Title
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Prose poems : spoken on memorable occasions
Creator
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Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: Manchester; London
Collation: 15 p. ; 18 cm.
Notes: This ed. not listed by Stein, but cf his Item 314. Contents: The past rises before me like a dream (extract from a speech delivered at the Soldiers' Reunion at Indianapolis, 1876) -- The Volunteer soldiers of the Union army (response to the toast at the grand banquet of the re-union of the Army of the Tennessee, Chicago, Nov. 13th, 1878) -- 1776 Declaration of Independence --At a brother's grave (Hon. Eron C. Ingersoll. Died at Washington, June 2nd, 1879) -- Whence and whither (spoken at the grave of a child. Jan. 1882). Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
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John Heywood, Ridgefield & Deansgate
Date
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[n.d.]
Identifier
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N386
Subject
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Poetry
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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 (Prose poems : spoken on memorable occasions), 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>
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application/pdf
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Text
Language
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English
NSS
Poetry
Speeches