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          Contents of this file                            page
     MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.                         1
     ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.                 6
     NOMINATION OF BLAINE                                   10
     THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.                                12
                          ****     ****

          This file, its printout, or copies of either
          are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.

          Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201

                The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

                          ****    ****

                 MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

                  New York, December 27, 1890.

                             TOAST.

                  Athletics among the Ancients.

     THE first record of public games is found in the twenty-third
Book of the Iliad. These games were performed at the funeral of
Patroclus, and there were: First. A chariot race, and the first
prize was:

         "A woman fair, well skilled in household care."

     Second. There was a pugilistic encounter, and the first prize,
appropriately enough, was a mule.

     It gave me great pleasure to find that Homer did not hold in
high esteem the victor. I have reached this conclusion, because the
poet put these words in the month of Eppius, the great boxer:

          In the battle-field I claim no special praise;
          'Tis not for man in all things to excel --"

winding up with the following refined declaration concerning his
opponent

          "I mean to pound his flesh and smash his bones."

     After the battle, the defeated was helped from the field. He
spit forth clotted gore. His head rolled from side to side, until
he fell unconscious.

     Third, wrestling; fourth, foot-race; fifth, fencing; sixth,
throwing the iron mass or bar; seventh, archery, and last, throwing
the javelin.

     All of these games were in honor of Patroclus. This is the
same Patroclus who according to Shakespeare, addressed Achilles in
these words:

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                 MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

          "Rouse yourself, and the weak wanton Cupid
           Shall from your neck unloose his amorous fold,
           And, like a dew-drop from the lion's mane,
           Be shook to air."

     These games were all born of the instinct of self-defence. The
chariot was used in war. Man should know the use of his hands, to
the end that he may repel assault. He should know the use of the
sword, to the end that he may strike down his enemy. He should be
skillful with the arrow, to the same end. If overpowered, he seeks
safety in flight -- he should therefore know how to run. So, too,
he could preserve himself by the skillful throwing of the javelin,
and in the close encounter a knowledge of wrestling might save his
life.

     Man has always been a fighting animal, and the art of self-
defence is nearly as important now as ever -- and will be, until
man rises to that supreme height from which he will be able to see
that no one can commit a crime against another without injuring
himself.

     The Greeks knew that the body bears a certain relation to the
soul -- that the better the body -- other things being equal -- the
greater the mind. They also knew that the body could be developed,
and that such development would give, or add to the health, the
courage, the endurance, the self-confidence, the independence and
the morality of the human race. They knew, too, that health was the
foundation, the corner-stone, of happiness.

     They knew that human beings should know something about
themselves, something of the capacities of body and mind, to the
end that they might ascertain the relation between conduct and
happiness, between temperance and health.

     It is needless to say that the Greeks were the most
intellectual of all races, and that they were in love with beauty,
with proportion, with the splendor of the body and of mind; and so
great was their admiration for the harmoniously developed, that
Sophocles had the honor of walking naked at the head of a great
procession.

     The Greeks, through their love of physical and mental
development, gave us the statues -- the most precious of all
Inanimate things -- of far more worth than all the diamonds and
rubies and pearls that ever glittered in crowns and tiaras, on
altars or thrones, or, flashing, rose and fell on woman's billowed
breast. In these marbles we find the highest types of life, of
superb endeavor and supreme repose. In looking at them we feel that
blood flows, that hearts throb and souls aspire. These miracles of
art are the richest legacies the ancient world has left our race.

     The nations in love with life, have games. To them existence
is exultation. They are fond of nature. They seek the woods and
streams. They love the winds and waves of the sea. They enjoy the
poem of the day, the drama of the year.

     Our Puritan fathers were oppressed with a sense of infinite
responsibility. They were disconsolate and sad, and no more thought

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                 MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

of sport, except the flogging of Quakers, than shipwrecked wretches
huddled on a raft would turn their attention to amateur
theatricals.

     For many centuries the body was regarded as a decaying casket,
in which had been placed the gem called the soul, and the nearer
rotten the casket the more brilliant the jewel.

     In those blessed days, the diseased were sainted, and insanity
born of fasting and self-denial and abuse of the body, was looked
upon as evidence of inspiration. Cleanliness was not next to
godliness -- it was the opposite; and in those days, what was known
as "the odor of sanctity" had a substantial foundation. Diseased
bodies produced all kinds of mental maladies. There is a direct
relation between sickness and superstition. Everybody knows that
Calvinism was the child of indigestion.

     Spooks and phantoms hover about the undeveloped and diseased,
as vultures sail above the dead.

     Our ancestors had the idea that they ought to be spiritual,
and that good health was inconsistent with the highest forms of
piety. This heresy crept into the minds even of secular writers,
and the novelists described their heroines as weak and languishing,
pale as lilies, and in the place of health's brave flag they put
the hectic flush.

     Weakness was interesting, and fainting captured the hearts of
all. Nothing was so attractive as a society belle with a drug-store
attachment.

     People became ashamed of labor, and consequently, of the
evidences of labor. They avoided "sun-burnt mirth " - were proud of
pallor, and regarded small, white hands as proof that they had
noble blood within their veins. It was a joy to be too weak to
work, too languishing to labor.

     The tide has turned. People are becoming sensible enough to
desire health, to admire physical development, symmetry of form,
and we now know that a race with little feet and hands has passed
the climax and is traveling toward the eternal night.

     When the central force is strong, men and women are full of
life to the finger tips. When the fires burn low, they begin to
shrivel at the extremities -- the hands and feet grow small, and
the mental flame wavers and wanes.

     To be self-respecting we must be self-supporting.

     Nobility is a question of character, not of birth.

     Honor cannot be received as alms it must be earned.

     It is the brow that makes the wreath of glory green.

     All exercise should be for the sake of development -- that is
to say, for the sake of health, and for the sake of the mind -- all


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                 MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

to the end that the person may become better, greater, more useful.
The gymnast or the athlete should seek for health as the student
should seek for truth; but when athletics degenerate into mere
personal contests, they become dangerous, because the contestants
lose sight of health, as in the excitement of debate the students
prefer personal victory to the ascertainment of truth.

     There is another thing to be avoided by all athletic clubs,
and that is, anything that tends to brutalize, destroy or dull the
finer feelings. Nothing is more disgusting, more disgraceful, than
pugilism -- nothing more demoralizing than an exhibition of
strength united with ferocity, and where the very body developed by
exercise is mutilated and disfigured.

     Sports that can by no possibility give pleasure, except to the
unfeeling, the hardened and the really brainless, should be
avoided. No gentleman should countenance rabbit-coursing, fighting
of dogs, the shooting of pigeons, simply as an exhibition of skill.

     All these things are calculated to demoralize and brutalize
not only the actors, but the lookers on. Such sports are savage,
fit only to be participated in and enjoyed by the cannibals of
Central Africa or the anthropoid apes.

     Find what a man enjoys -- what he laughs at -- what he calls
diversion -- and you know what he is. Think of a man calling
himself civilized, who is in raptures at a bull fight -- who smiles
when he sees the hounds pursue and catch and tear in pieces the
timid hare, and who roars with laughter when he watches the
pugilists pound each other's faces, closing each other's eyes,
breaking jaws and smashing noses. Such men are beneath the animals
they torture -- on a level with the pugilists they applaud.
Gentlemen should hold such sports in unspeakable contempt. No man
finds pleasure in inflicting pain.

     In every public school there should be a gymnasium. It is
useless to cram minds and deform bodies. Hands should be educated
as well as heads. All should be taught the sports and games that
require mind, muscle, nerve and judgment.

     Even those who labor should take exercise, to the end that the
whole body may be developed. Those who work at one employment
become deformed. Proportion is lost. But where harmony is preserved
by the proper exercise, even old age is beautiful.

     To the well developed, to the strong, life seems rich,
obstacles small, and success easy. They laugh at cold and storm.
Whatever the season may be their hearts are filled with summer.

     Millions go from the cradle to the coffin without knowing what
it is to live. They simply succeed in postponing death. Without
appetites, without passions, without struggle, they slowly rot in
a waveless pool. They never know the glory of success, the rapture
of the fight.

     To become effeminate is to invite misery. In the most delicate
bodies may be found the most degraded souls. It was the Duchess 


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                 MANHATTAN ATHLETIC CLUB DINNER.

Josiane whose pampered flesh became so sensitive that she thought
of hell as a place where people were compelled to sleep between
coarse sheets.

     We need the open air -- we need the experience of heat and
cold. We need not only the rewards and caresses, but the discipline
of our mother Nature. Life is not all sunshine, neither is it all
storm, but man should be enabled to enjoy the one and to withstand
the other.

     I believe in the religion of the body -- of physical
development -- in devotional exercise -- in the beatitudes of
cheerfulness, good health, good food, good clothes, comradeship,
generosity, and above all, in happiness. I believe in salvation
here and now. Salvation from deformity and disease -- from weakness
and pain -- from ennui and insanity. I believe in heaven here and
now -- the heaven of health and good digestion -- of strength and
long life -- of usefulness and joy. I believe in the builders and
defenders of homes.

     The gentlemen whom we honor to-night have done a great work.
To their energy we are indebted for the nearest perfect, for the
grandest athletic clubhouse in the world. Let these clubs multiply.
Let the example be followed, until our country is filled with
physical and intellectual athletes -- superb fathers, perfect
mothers, and every child an heir to health and joy.

                          ****    ****

             ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

                     New York, June 5, 1888.

     MR. PRESIDENT, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I have addressed, or
annoyed, a great many audiences in my life and I have not the
slightest doubt that I stand now before more ability, a greater
variety of talent, and more real genius than I ever addressed in my
life.

     I know all about respectable stupidity, and I am perfectly
acquainted with the brainless wealth and success of this life, and
I know, after all, how poor the world would be without that divine
thing that we call genius -- what a worthless habitation, if you
take from it all that genius has given.

     I know also that all joy springs from a love of nature. I know
that all joy is what I call Pagan. The natural man takes delight in
everything that grows, in everything that shines, in everything
that enjoys -- he has an immense sympathy with the whole human
race.

     Of that feeling, of that spirit, the drama is born. People
must first be in love with life before they can think it worth
representing. They must have sympathy with their fellows before
they can enter into their feelings and know what their heart throbs
about. So, I say, back of the drama is this love of life, this love
of nature. And whenever a country becomes prosperous -- and this 


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             ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

has been pointed out many times -- when a wave of wealth runs over
a land, -- behind it you will see all the sons and daughters of
genius. When a man becomes of some account he is worth painting.
When by success and prosperity he gets the pose of a victor, the
sculptor is inspired; and when love is really in his heart, words
burst into blossom and the poet is born. When great virtues appear,
when magnificent things are done by heroines and heroes, then the
stage is built, and the life of a nation is compressed into a few
hours, or -- to use the language of the greatest -- "turning the
accomplishment of many years into an hour-glass"; the stage is
born, and we love it because we love life -- and he who loves the
stage has a kind of double life.

     The drama is a crystallization of history, an epitome of the
human heart. The past is lived again and again, and we see upon the
stage, love, sacrifice, fidelity, courage -- all the virtues
mingled with all the follies.

     And what is the great thing that the stage does? It cultivates
the imagination. And let me say now, that the imagination
constitutes the great difference between human beings.

     The imagination is the mother of pity, the mother of
generosity, the mother of every possible virtue. It is by the
imagination that you are enabled to put yourself in the place of
another. Every dollar that has been paid into your treasury came
from an imagination vivid enough to imagine himself or herself
lying upon the lonely bed of pain, or as having fallen by the
wayside of life, dying alone. It is this imagination that makes the
difference in men.

     Do you believe that a man would plunge the dagger into the
heart of another if he had imagination enough to see him dead --
imagination enough to see his widow throw her arms about the corpse
and cover his face with sacred tears -- imagination enough to see
them digging his grave, and to see the funeral and to hear the
clods fall upon the coffin and the sobs of those who stood about --
do you believe he would commit the crime? Would any man be false
who had imagination enough to see the woman that he once loved, in
the darkness of night, when the black clouds were floating through
the sky hurried by the blast as thoughts and memories were hurrying
through her poor brain -- if he could see the white flutter of her
garment as she leaped to the eternal, blessed sleep of death -- do
you believe that he would be false to her? I tell you that he would
be true.

     So that, in my judgment, the great mission of the stage is to
cultivate the human imagination. That is the reason fiction has
done so much good. Compared with the stupid lies called history,
how beautiful are the imagined things with painted wings. Everybody
detests a thing that pretends to be true and is not; but when it
says, "I am about to create," then it is beautiful in the
proportion that it is artistic, in the proportion that it is a
success.

     Imagination is the mother of enthusiasm. Imagination fans the
little spark into a flame great enough to warm the human race; and 
enthusiasm is to the mind what spring is to the world.

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             ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

     Now I am going to say a few words because I want to, and
because I have the chance.

     What is known as "orthodox religion" has always been the enemy
of the theater. It has been the enemy of every possible comfort, of
every rational joy -- that is to say, of amusement. And there is a
reason for this. Because, if that religion be true, there should be
no amusement. If you believe that in every moment is the peril of
eternal pain -- do not amuse yourself. Stop the orchestra, ring
down the curtain, and be as miserable as you can. That idea puts an
infinite responsibility upon the soul -- an infinite responsibility
-- and how can there be any art, how can there be any joy, after
that? You might as well pile all the Alps on one unfortunate ant,
and then say, "Why don't you play? Enjoy yourself."

     If that doctrine be true, every one should regard time as a
kind of dock, a pier running out into the ocean of eternity, on
which you sit on your trunk and wait for the ship of death --
solemn, lugubrious, melancholy to the last degree.

     And that is why I have said joy is Pagan. It comes from a love
of nature, from a love of this world, from a love of this life.
According to the idea of some good people, life is a kind of green-
room, where you are getting ready for a "play" in some other
country.

     You all remember the story of "Great Expectations," and I
presume you have all had them. That is another thing about this
profession of acting that I like -- you do not know how it is
coming out -- and there is this delightful uncertainty.

     You have all read the book called "Great Expectations,"
written, in my judgment, by the greatest novelist that ever wrote
the English language -- the man who created a vast realm of joy. I
love the joy-makers -- not the solemn, mournful wretches. And when
I think of the church asking something of the theater, I remember
that story of "Great Expectations." You remember Miss Haversham --
she was to have been married some fifty or sixty years before that
time -- sitting there in the dankness, in all of her wedding
finery, the laces having turned yellow by time, the old wedding
cake crumbled, various insects having made it their palatial
residence -- you remember that she sent for that poor little boy
Pip, and when he got there in the midst of all these horrors, she
looked at him and said, "Pip, play! And if their doctrine be true, 
every actor is in that situation.

     I have always loved the theater -- loved the stage, simply
because it has added to the happiness of this life. "Oh but," they
say, "is it moral?" A superstitious man suspects everything that is
pleasant. It seems inbred in his nature, and in the nature of most
people. You let such a man pull up a little weed and taste it, and
if it is sweet and good, he says, "I'll bet it is poison." But if
it tastes awful, so that his face becomes a mask of disgust, he
says, "I'll bet you that it is good medicine."

     Now, I believe that everything in the world that tends to make
man happy, is moral. That is my definition of morality. Anything 
that bursts into bud and blossom, and bears the fruit of joy, is
moral.
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             ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

     Some people expect to make the world good by destroying desire
-- by a kind of pious petrifaction, feeling that if you do not want
anything, you will not want anything bad. In other words, you will
be good and moral if you will only stop growing, stop wishing, turn
all your energies in the direction of repression, and if from the
tree of life you pull every leaf, and then every bud -- and if an
apple happens to get ripe in spite of you, don't touch it --
snakes!

     I insist that happiness is the end -- virtue the means -- and
anything that wipes a tear from the face of man is good. Everything
that gives laughter to the world -- laughter springing from good
nature, that is the most wonderful music that has ever enriched the
ears of man. And let me say that nothing can be more immoral than
to waste your own life, and sour that of others.

     Is the theater moral? I suppose you have had an election
to-day. They had an election at the Metropolitan Opera House for
bishops, and they voted forged tickets; and after the election was
over, I suppose they asked the old question in the same solemn
tone: "Is the theater moral?"

     At last, all the intelligence of the world admits that the
theater is a great, a splendid instrumentality for increasing the
well-being of man. But only a few years ago our fathers were poor
barbarians. They only wanted the essentials of life, and through
nearly all the centuries Genius was a vagabond -- Art was a
servant. He was the companion of the clown. Writers, poets, actors,
either sat "below the salt" or devoured the "remainder biscuit,"
and drank what drunkenness happened to leave, or lived on crumbs,
and they had less than the crumbs of respect. The painter had to
have a patron, and then in order to pay the patron, he took the
patron's wife for Venus -- and the man, he was the Apollo! So the
writer had to have a patron, and he endeavored to immortalize him
in a preface of obsequious lies. The writer had no courage. The
painter, the sculptor -- poor wretches -- had "patrons." Some of
the greatest of the world were treated as servants, and yet they
were the real kings of the human race.

     Now the public is the patron, The public has the intelligence
to see what it wants. The stage does not have to flatter any man.
The actor now does not enroll himself as the servant of duke or
lord. He has the great public, and if he is a great actor, he
stands as high in the public estimation as any other man in any
other walk of life.

     And these men of genius, these "vagabonds," these "sturdy
vagrants" of the old law -- and let me say one thing right here: I
do not believe that there ever was a man of genius that had not a
little touch of the vagabond in him somewhere -- just a little
touch of chaos -- that is to say, he must have generosity enough
now and then absolutely to forget himself -- he must be generous to
that degree that he starts out without thinking of the shore and
without caring for the sea -- and that is that touch of chaos. And
yet, through all those years the poets and the actors lacked bread.
Imagine the number of respectable dolts who felt above them. The
men of genius lived on the bounty of the few, grudgingly given.


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             ADDRESS TO THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA.

     Now, just think what would happen, what we would be, if you
could blot from this world what these men have done. If you could
take from the walls the pictures; from the niches the statues; from
the memory of man the songs that have been sung by "The Plowman" --
take from the memory of the world what has been done by the actors
and play-writers, and this great globe would be like a vast skull
emptied of all thought.

     And let me say one word more, and that is as to the dignity of
your profession.

     The greatest genius of this world has produced your
literature. I am not now alluding simply to one -- but there has
been more genius lavished upon the stage -- more real genius, more
creative talent, than upon any other department of human effort.
And when men and women belong to a profession that can count
Shakespeare in its number, they should feel nothing but pride.

     Nothing gives me more pleasure than to speak of Shakespeare --
Shakespeare, in whose brain were the fruits of all thoughts past,
the seeds of all to be -- Shakespeare, an intellectual ocean toward
which all rivers ran, and from which now the isles and continents
of thought receive their dew and rain.

     A profession that can boast that Shakespeare was one of its
members, and that from his brain poured out that mighty
intellectual cataract -- that Mississippi that will enrich all
coming generations -- the man that belongs to that profession --
should feel that no other man by reason of belonging to some other,
can be his superior.

     And such a man, when he dies -- or the friend of such a man,
when that man dies -- should not imagine that it is a very generous
and liberal thing for some minister to say a few words above the
corpse -- and I do not want to see this profession cringe before
any other.

     One word more. I hope that you will sustain this splendid
charity. I do not believe that more generous people exist than
actors. I hope you will sustain this charity, And yet, there was
one little thing I saw in your report of last year, that I want to
call attention to. You had "benefits" all over this country, and of
the amount raised, one hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars
were given to religious societies and twelve thousand dollars to
the Actors' Fund -- and yet they say actors are not Christians! Do
you not love your enemies? After this, I hope that you will also
love your friends.
                               END

                          ****     ****

                      SPEECH AT CINCINNATI

                              NOTE:
     The nomination of Blaine was the passionately dermatic scene
of the day. Robert G. Ingersoll had been fixed upon to present 
blaine's name to the Convention, and, as the result proved, a more
effective champion could not have been selected in the whole party
conclave.
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                      NOMINATION OF BLAINE

     As the clerk, running down the list, reached Maine, an
extraordinary event happened. The applause and cheers which had
heretofore broken out in desultory patches of the galleries and
platform, broke in a simultaneous, thunderous outburst from every,
part of the house.

     Ingersoll moved out from the obscure corner and advanced to
the central stage. As he walked forward the thundering cheers,
sustained and swelling, never ceased. As he reached the platform
they took on an increased volume of sound, and for ten minutes the
surging fury of acclamation, the wild waving of fans, hats, and
handkerchiefs transformed the scene from one of deliberation to
that of a bedlam of rapturous delirium Ingersoll waited with
unimpaired serenity, until he should get a chance to be heard. * *
* And then began an appeal, Impassioned, artful, brilliant, and
persuasive. * * * Possessed of a fine figure, a face of winning,
cordial frankness, Ingersoll had half won his audience before he
spoke a word. It is the attestation of every man that heard him,
that so brilliant a master stroke was never uttered before a
political Convention. Its effect was indescribable. The
coolest-headed in the hall were stirred to the wildest expression.
The adversaries of Blaine, as well as his friends, listened with
unswerving, absorbed attention. Curtis sat spell-bound, his eyes
and mouth wide open, his figure moving in unison to the tremendous
periods that fell in a measured, exquisitely graduated flow from
the Illinoisan's smiling lips. The matchless method and manner of
the man can never be imagined from the report in type. To realize
the prodigious force, the inexpressible power, the irrestrainable
fervor of the audience requires actual sight.

     Words can do but meager justice to the wizard power of this
extraordinary man. He swayed and moved and impelled and restrained
and worked in all ways with the mass before him as if he possessed 
some key to the innermost mechanism that moves the human heart, and
when he finished, his fine, frank face as calm as when he began,
the overwrought thousands sank back in an exhaustion of unspeakable
wonder and delight. --

                                      Chicago Times, June 16, 1876.

                      NOMINATION OF BLAINE

                         June 15, 1876.

     MASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H.
Bristow; so am I; but if any man nominated by, this convention can
not carry the State of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the
loyalty of that State. If the nominee of this convention cannot
carry the grand old Commonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five
thousand majority, I would advise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as
a Democratic headquarters. I would advise them to take from Bunker
Hill that old monument of glory.

     The Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in
the great contest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of
integrity, a man of well-known and approved political opinions.
They demand a statesman; they demand a reformer after as well as 


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                      NOMINATION OF BLAINE

before the election. They demand a politician in the highest,
broadest and best sense -- a man of superb moral courage. They
demand a man acquainted with public affairs -- with the wants of
the people; with not only the requirements of the hour, but with
the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to
comprehend the relations of this Government to the other nations of
the earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties and
prerogatives of each and every department of this Government. They
demand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the
United States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt
must be paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows
enough to know that all the financial theories in the world cannot
redeem a single dollar; one who knows enough to know that all the
money must be made, not by law, but by labor; one who knows enough
to know that the people of the United States have the industry to
make the money, and the honor to pay it over just as fast as they
make it.

     The Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows
that prosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together;
that when they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden
harvest fields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the 
turning wheels; hand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in 
hand by the flaming forges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled
with eager fire, greeted and grasped by the countless sons
of toil.

     This money has to be dug out of the earth. You cannot make it
by passing resolutions in a political convention.

     The Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that
this Government should protect every citizen, at home and abroad;
who knows that any government that will not defend its defenders,
and protect its protectors, is a disgrace to the map of the
world. They demand a man who believes in the eternal separation and
divorcement of church and school. They demand a man whose political
reputation is spotless as a star; but they do not demand that their
candidate shall have a certificate of moral character signed by a
Confederate congress. The man who has, in full, heaped and rounded
measure, all these splendid qualifications, is the present grand 
and gallant leader of the Republican party -- James G. Blaine.

     Our country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements
of its first century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and
prophetic of her future; asks for a man who has the audacity of
genius; asks for a man who is the grandest combination of heart,
conscience and brain beneath her flag -- such a man is James G.
Blaine.

     For the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can
be no defeat.

     This is a grand year -- a year filled with recollections of
the Revolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past;.
with the sacred legends of liberty -- a year in which the sons of
freedom will drink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in
which the people call for the man who has preserved in Congress
what our soldiers won upon the field;  a year in which they call 

                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               11

                      NOMINATION OF BLAINE

for the man who has torn from the throat of treason the tongue of
slander -- for the man who has snatched the mask of Democracy from
the hideous face of rebellion; for the man who, like an
intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and
challenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.

     Like an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine
marched down the halls of the American Congress and threw his
shining lance full and fair against the brazen foreheads of the
defamers of his country and the malingers of his honor. For the
Republican party to desert this gallant leader now, is as though an
army should desert their general upon the field of battle.

     James G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of
the sacred standard of the Republican party. I call it sacred,
because no human being can stand beneath its folds without becoming
and without remaining free.

     Gentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great
Republic, the only republic that ever existed upon this earth; in 
the name of all her defenders and of all her supporters; in the
name of all her soldiers living; in the name of all her soldiers
dead upon the field of battle, and in the name of those who
perished in the skeleton clutch of famine at Andersonville and
Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers, Illinois --
Illinois nominates for the next President of this country, that
prince of parliamentarians -- that leader of leaders -- James G.
Blaine.

                          ****     ****

                     THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.

                              1892

     AGAIN we celebrate the victory of Light over Darkness, of the
God of day over the hosts of night. Again Samson is victorious over
Delilah, and Hercules triumphs once more over Omphale. In the
embrace of Isis, Osiris rises from the dead, and the scowling
Typhon is defeated once more. Again Apollo, with unerring aim, with
his arrow from the quiver of light, destroys the serpent of shadow.
This is the festival of Thor, of Baldur and of Prometheus. Again
Buddha by a miracle escapes from the tyrant of Madura, Zoroaster
foils the King, Bacchus laughs at the rage of Cadmus, and Chrishna
eludes the tyrant.

     This is the festival of the sun-god, and as such let its
observance be universal.

     This is the great day of the first religion, the mother of all
religions -- the worship of the sun.

     Sun worship is not only the first, but the most natural and
most reasonable of all. And not only the most natural and the most
reasonable, but by far the most poetic, the most beautiful.

 


                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               12

                     THE AGNOSTIC CHRISTMAS.

     The sun is the god of benefits, of growth, of life, of warmth,
of happiness, of joy. The sun is the all-seeing, the all-pitying,
the all-loving.

     This bright God knew no hatred, no malice, never sought for
revenge.

     All evil qualities were in the breast of the God of darkness,
of shadow, of night. And so I say again, this is the festival of
Light. This is the anniversary of the triumph of the Sun over the
hosts of Darkness.

     Let us all hope for the triumph of Light -- of Right and
Reason -- for the victory of Fact over Falsehood, of Science over
Superstition.

     And so hoping, let us celebrate the venerable festival of the
Sun. --

                         The Journal, New York, December 25, 1892.



                          ****     ****

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                         Bank of Wisdom
                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
                               13
