Other formats

    Adobe Portable Document Format file (facsimile images)   TEI XML file   ePub eBook file  

Connect

    mail icontwitter iconBlogspot iconrss icon

The Pamphlet Collection of Sir Robert Stout: Volume 42

"God said let there be light

"God said let there be light,

and there was light: And God saw that it was good." Why did our brilliant lecturer leave out that most important part of the second thing which was told by Moses? Perhaps it was not suitable for being "expressely made to fit" the first misstatement, and consequently had to be rejected. Besides, with this stone laid on the foundation, no amount of plaster could have caused sufficient adhesiveness for the next tier, which he could not possibly lay aside—to lie compactly—we shall see why presently. In the proper place, however, Moses did say "God divided page 10 the light from the darkness," and is there any idiot in the world who would contradict that patent truth? Are our daylight and darkness both one? Are they not truly divided? Have we not daylight one part of our day and darkness the other? When, therefore, will wise men learn to speak sensibly, and cease to make fools of themselves in such matters?

There does seem to be still a serious mixture of darkness and light forming a painful obscurity in the mind of this sarcastic lecturer; and of a truth it is an obscurity that can be felt, and I fear will continue to be felt long "after he is dust and ashes." Still there is little reason to believe that ever it will have the honor of being preserved in a bottle at Washington for exhibition to future generations; simply because that kind of mixture has become so common a commodity that no person is the least surprised when it is discovered. It is by no means a novelty. It is as common as free-thought lecturers and even more intrusive. To minds benighted by this darkness, strangely intermixed with streaks of light, it is absolutely impossible for things to appear in the form and pure distinctiveness which they present in the clear sunlight. This mixture of light with things that are dark causes mirage and shadows, and consequently a greater or less degree of distortion. That Ingersoll was suffering from a defect of this kind appears most evident in the succeeding paragraph, when speaking of