ty.

But my chief desire was to elicit Colonel Ingersoll's personal
views on questions related to the New Thought and its attitude on
matters on which he is known to have very decided opinions. My
request for a private chat was cordially granted. During the
conversation that ensued--(the substance of which is presented to
the readers of _Mind_ in the following paragraphs, with the Colonel's
consent)--I was impressed most deeply, not by the force of his
arguments, but by the sincerity of his convictions. Among some of
his more violent opponents, who presumably lack other opportunities
of becoming known, it is the fashion to accuse Ingersoll of having
really no belief in his own opinions. But, if he convinced me of
little else, he certainly, without effort, satisfied my mind that
this accusation is a slander. Utterly mistaken in his views he may
be; but if so, his errors are more honest than many of those he
points out in the King James version of the Bible. If his pulpit
enemies could talk with this man by his own fireside, they would
pay less attention to Ingersoll himself and more to what he says.
They would consider his _meaning_, rather than his motive.

As the Colonel is the most conspicuous denunciator of intolerance
and bigotry in America, he has been inevitably the greatest victim
of these obstacles to mental freedom. "To answer Ingersoll" is
the pet ambition of many a young clergyman--the older ones have
either acquired prudence or are broad enough to concede the utility
of even Agnostics in the economy of evolution. It was with the
very subject that we began our talk--the uncharitableness of men,
otherwise good, in their treatment of those whose religious views
differ from their own.]

_Question_. What is your conception of true intellectual hospitality?
As Truth can brook no compromises, has it not the same limitations
that surround social and domestic hospitality?

_Answer_. In the republic of mind we are all equals. Each one is
sceptered and crowned. Each one is the monarch of his own realm.
By "intellectual hospitality" I mean the right of every one to
think and to express his thought. It makes no difference whether
his thought is right or wrong. If you are intellectually hospitable
you will admit the right of every human being to see for himself;
to hear with his own ears, see with his own eyes, and think with
his own brain. You will not try to change his thought by force,
by persecution