ce
of his time? Orthodoxy never advances, when it does advance, it ceases
to be orthodoxy.

A reply to certain strictures in the Occident led the lecturer up to
another ministerial critic, namely, the Rev. W.E. Ijams.

I want to say that, so far as I can see, in his argument this gentleman
has treated me in a kind and considerate spirit. He makes two or three
mistakes, but I suppose they are the fault of the report from which he
quoted. I am made to say in his sermon that there is no sacred place
in the universe. What I did say was: There is no sacred place in all
the universe of thought; there is nothing too holy to be investigated,
nothing too sacred to be understood, and I said that the fields of
thought were fenceless, that they should be without a wall. I say so
tonight. He further said that I said that a man had not only the right
to do right, but to do wrong. What I did say, was: "Liberty is the
right to do right, and the right to think right, and the right to think
wrong," not the right to do wrong. That is all I have to say in regard
to that gentleman, except that, so far as I could see, he was perfectly
fair, and treated me as though I was a human being as well as he.

The speaker sarcastically referred to the slurs thrown upon him by his
reviewers, who have claimed that his theories have no foundation, his
arguments no reason, and that his utterances are vapid, blasphemous,
and unworthy a reply. He said that their statements and their actions
were sadly at variance, for, while declaring him a senseless idiot,
they spent hours in striving to prove themselves not idiots; in other
words, in one breath they declare that his views were absolutely
without point, and needed no explaining away; while in direct rebuttal
of this declaration, they devoted time and labor in attempts to
disprove the very things they called self-evident absurdities.

Turning from this subject, Mr. Ingersoll read numerous extracts from
the bible, with interpolated comments. He claimed that the bible
authorized slavery, and that many devoted believers in that book had
turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post. He did not wish it
understood that he could find no good in believers in creeds; far from
it, for some of his dearest friends were most orthodox in their
religious ideas, and there had been hundreds of thousands of good men
among both clergy and laymen. History has shown no people more nobly
self-sacrificing than