The Firmament,

where he says, "The next thing that he informs us is that God divided the waters above the firmament from the waters below the firmament. The man who wrote that believed it to be a solid affair." Now, whoever uttered these words must have read the narrative to very little purpose; for it is a shocking misrepresentation. Can it be possible that the man who said, "A lie will not fit anything, except another lie made for the express purpose," wrote this lecture? For he surely would be careful about rearing a harmonious structure. Who told him that the writer of Genesis believed the firmament to be a "solid affair?" Had he for a moment cast his eye on the marginal column, he would, to his dire confusion, at once have found that the more correct, or rather the more expressive idea is there given, in the word expansion. Moreover, the passage does not read as Ingersoll would make believe. For this is as it appears in the authorised version, "And God said let there be a firmament (expansion) in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters." Does this convey the idea of a solid? If I can be shown a solid space, then I will believe so. Until someone produces or demonstrates to me that an expansion or a space between two solids, or liquids, if you please, is also a solid, I shall take the liberty of regarding the man who says it as regardless of the sacredness of truth or the vileness of falsehood. It is a common complaint amongst the traducers of religion that preachers do not reason cogently, and that they expect their hearers to believe whatever is told them. Oh, Ingersoll, behold your picture faintly drawn!

What can he mean by such an unwarrantable assertion regarding