In presenting to the public this edition of the writing of Colonel Robert G. Ingersoll, it has been the aim to make it as handsome, durable and comlete as possible - worthy in every wayof the valiant, generous, much-beloved genius who penned there magical pages.
Robert Ingersoll's tremendous message - one of the most important messages of all time - thunders through these volumes. The orator himself has passed away, but the words that woke America from sleep and stupor ring out as liberty bells for all mankind!
The Age of Enlightenment dawned upon the world in that hour when Robert Ingersoll first delivered his lecture on The Gods, the opening chapter of this volume. In that hour the darkness of medieval madness and hypocrisy and witchcraft and superstition began to give way. The armies of the Terrible Unseen commenced to melt away into mist. The phantoms and weird horrors which had haunted the imaginations of men faded in the sunshine and sanity of an Emancipator who was the personal friend of Lincoln and did as much for enslaved minds as Lincoln had done for enslaved bodies!
Where these books of Ingersoll's go there will be tranquility in the spirits of men. He brings peace to troubled minds, courage to frightened hearts. With infinite gaiety an dgood-humor he builds up the strong fortress of Reason to defend men against the whirlwinds of Superstition.
His speeches and writings were originally collected and prepared for publication by his kinsman, C.P. Farrell. At a time when the hosts of the dealers in hob-goblins still made a great shouting against Ingersoll, this man had the courage to be his first "publisher". All honor to him!
Now Mr. Farrell too has passed away, and the legacy which Ingersoll left to mankind, his thoguhts and writings, impose a duty on his family and friends. To perpetuate his influence and insure to his fellow-countrymen the easiest and readiest access to his books, the Ingersoll League has been founded.
The League feels it duty to lie in making Ingersoll's victorious point of view available to all who need and crave it. There never was a time when his type of thinking was more needed than to-day! Any by preparing this official edition The Ingersoll Leaque hopes to deserve the praise and thanks of all who wish mankind well!
The League sends its cordial greeting to all those who are now and later to be benefited, strenthened, cheered and uplifted by these books. If they are enlightened and helped and stimulated, if their lives are a little freer and happier and more courageous - that is all the League could wish, all Colonel Ingersoll himself ever desired!
The Ingersoll League
If humanists had saints, Robert Ingersoll
would be their first American saint. He rates up there with such
liberators as Cain, Prometheus and Socrates. These collected works by
Ingersoll are annotated by me to fill in the details that the modern
reader may not be aware as to what Ingersoll was referring to in his
writings, as well as historical background information. I hope you
enjoy this profound American Humanist. Regards, Dane C.
Sorensen