“And I want to express my deepest sense of gratitude and appreciation. But, alas! my lips can coin no phrases which can repay to you the debt of gratitude I owe to every one here. I shall carry the recollection of this club as one of the pleasantest of my remembrances as long as life shall last, and when life is approaching its end I know I shall, for one, indulge in those reveries which are the glorious twilight of the soul. And, sitting by the hearth fire, I shall watch the droppings of the grains of sand in the great hour-glass and count the beads of memory. And I shall see reflected in the flames of the yule-log the faces passing in review before me of all whom I have met in this club. It will recall to mind all those with whom I have communed here, heart to heart and soul to soul. Some of them may have been buried under distant sods, some may have found graves in the depths of the ocean, and there are others who may not yet have joined the vast army of the dead, but all their faces will pass, as I have said, in review before me, and I know I will find myself whispering: ‘Such faces were always the most precious to me.’” (Prolonged applause.) Col. Robert G. Ingersoll was without doubt one of the greatest popular orators of the age. He never received the full credit due to his great success as an orator during his lifetime, as his vehement assaults on the Christian religion aroused so many and such powerful enmities. But without regarding his creed, judging him solely by his power as an orator, no nation can to-day produce his equal. There was poetry, wit, humor, sarcasm, and tenderest pathos in nearly every lecture he delivered, whether on religion or politics. [Illustration] Colonel Ingersoll was not invited by the lyceums to lecture in their regular courses, but his fame was so great that he did not need their aid in getting audiences. Whenever he wanted to lecture he sent out an agent, “hired a hall,” and lectured at his own risk, and, almost always, when in large cities, to his own pecuniary benefit. In the smaller towns the church influence was always too much for him, and it did not pay him to lecture in such places. While coming from New England one day with Mr. Beecher, Colonel Ingersoll was in the same car. After a pleasant salutation between the two, the Colonel went to his seat. In his mischievous way Mr. Beecher said, “I have written that man’s epitaph.” He showed me written on the margin of a newspaper, with his pencil, two words: “_Robert Burns_.” [Illustration: FREDERICK DOUGLASS]