We are not endeavoring to chain the future, but to free the present. We are not forgoing fetters for our children, but we are breaking those our fathers made for us. We are the advocates of inquiry, of investigation and thought. This of itself, is an admission that we are not perfectly satisfied with all our conclusions. Philosophy has not the egotism of faith. While superstition builds walls and creates obstructions, science opens all the highways of thought. We do not pretend to have circumnavigated everything, and to have solved all difficulties, but we do believe that it is better to love men than to fear gods, that it is grander and nobler to think and investigate for yourself than to repeat a creed. We are satisfied that there can be but little liberty on earth while men worship a tyrant in heaven. We do not expect to accomplish everything in our day; but we want to do what good we can, and to render all the service possible in the holy cause of human progress. We know that doing away with gods and supernatural persons and powers is not an end. It is a means to an end; the real end being the happiness of man. Felling forests is not the end of agriculture. Driving pirates from the sea is not all there is of commerce. We are laying the foundations of a grand temple of the future--not the temple of all the gods, but of all the people--wherein, with appropriate rites, will be celebrated the religion of Humanity. We are doing what little we can to hasten the coming of the day when society shall cease producing millionaires and mendicants--gorged indolence and famished industry--truth in rags, and superstition robed and crowned. We are looking for the time when the useful shall be the honorable; and when REASON, throned upon the world's brain, shall be the King of Kings, and God of Gods. INGERSOLL'S LECTURE ON GHOSTS. Ladies and Gentlemen: In the first place, allow me to tender my sincere thanks to the clergy of this city. I feel that I am greatly indebted to them for this magnificent audience. It has been said, and I believe it myself, that there is a vast amount of intolerance in the church of today, but when twenty-four clergymen, three of whom, I believe, are bishops, act as my advance agents, without expecting any remuneration, or reward in this world, I must admit that perhaps I was mistaken on the question of intolerance. And I will say, further, that against those men I have not the slightest feeling in the world; every man is the product of his own surroundings; he is the product of every circumstance that has ever touched him; he is the product to a certain degree of the religion and creed of his day, and when men show the slightest intolerance I blame the creed, I blame the religion, I blame the superstition that forced them to do so. I do not blame those men.