In referring some time ago to the subject matter of Colonel Ingersoll's teachings, Prof. David Swing, of Chicago, laid special emphasis on the point, that the man speaking and the thing spoken were entirely separable, and that no wise criticism of these words could proceed, unless this fact was kept in view. This word of caution is as timely as it is wise. We are too much prone to judge the music by the amount of gilding on the organ-pipes; we are too apt to forget that gold is gold, whether in the leathern pouch of a beggar or the silken purse of a king. The doubts expressed, the truths uttered, the questions proposed by the so-called Infidel, demand of us that for their own sakes we give them generous, patient audience. The point of supreme importance is, not whether Mr. Ingersoll is an authority on the grave questions with which he is pleased to deal, but are these teachings truth? "There's the rub." If we are wise we shall judge the teachings rather than the teacher. Affrighted orthodox Christians are perpetually warning their young friends against Mr. Ingersoll. He is portrayed as a very terrible personage, going up and down to work sad havoc amongst the unsuspecting youth of the Time. Orthodoxy would prove itself wiser, it would be bolder, and it would give some slight guarantee for honesty, if it left the man alone, and addressed itself seriously to the grave questions at issue. Colonel Ingersoll shares with Huxley, Darwin and Herbert Spencer the high distinction of being criticized most vehemently by those who have never heard his voice, and have never carefully read a page of his published works; and as is always the case in such circumstances, the most absurd and exaggerated statements of what Mr. Ingersoll _never_ said have become current, and the speaker has been transformed into a very Gorgon of horror! But this is nothing new, this is one of the many tolls that every man must be willing to pay who marches on the grand highway of freedom. The pages of this book deserve a careful study, and if it be true that "out of the fullness of the heart the mouth speaketh," we may judge from what sort of a heart-fountain these streams have flowed.