that day.

Ingersoll's Lecture on Talmagian Theology (Second Lecture)

Col. Ingersoll began, "Only a few years ago the pulpit was almost
supreme. The palace was almost in the shadow of the cathedral, and the
power behind every throne was a priest. Man was held in physical
slavery by kings, and in a mental prison by the church. He was allowed
to hold no opinions as to where he came from, nor as to where he was
going. It was sufficient for him to do the labor and believe the kings
would do the governing and the priests the thinking--and, my God, what
thinking! If the world had obeyed the priests we would all be idiots
tonight. The eagle of intellect would have given way to the blind bat
of faith. They were the rack, the faggot, the thumbscrew in this world,
and hell in the next. Only a few years ago no man could express an
honest thought unless he agreed with the church. The church has been a
perpetual beggar. It has never plowed, it never sowed, it never spun,
yet Solomon in all his glory was not so arrayed. Thanks to modern
thought, the brain of the nineteenth century, to Voltaire, Paine, Hume,
to all the free men, that beggar--the church--is no longer upon
horseback; and it fills me with joy to state that even its walking is
not now good. Only a little while ago a priest was thought more than
human. Nobody dared contradict the minister. Now there are other
learned professions. There are doctors, lawyers, writers, books,
newspapers, and the priest has hundreds of rivals.

The priest grew jealous, hateful; he was always thankful for an
epidemic or pestilence, so that people would turn to him in despair.
In our country all the men of intellect were in the pulpit once. Now
there are so many avenues to distinction the men of brain, heart and
red blood have left the pulpit and gone to useful things. I do not say
all. There are still some men of mind in the pulpit, but they are
nearer infidels than any others. Where do we get our ministers? A
young man, without constitution enough to be wicked, without health
enough to enjoy the things of this world, naturally, fixes his gaze on
high. He is educated, sent to a university where he is taught that it
is criminal to think. Stuffed with a creed, he comes out a shepherd.
Most of them are intellectual shreds and patches, mental ravelings,
selvage. Every pulpit is a pillory in which stands a convict; every
member of the church stands over him with a