The Ghosts, and Other LecturesIngersoll, Robert Green
Religion
The Ghosts, and Other Lectures
Ingersoll, Robert Green
Free thought
A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other,
and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of
course he lies.
I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the
brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little
breastwork in the shape of a lie.
When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that
you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best
way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his
boy left home: "John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both." Be
honest with him. Suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger
than a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in
his hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, "Who broke that plate?" There
is not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it,
or that it was cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these
children? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for
putting false rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and
blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that
way! Think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he
thinks! Just think of it!
When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your
heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and
truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when
a child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: "Never do you
darken this house again." Think of that! And then these same people
will get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the child they
have driven from home. I will never ask God to take care of my children
unless I am doing my level best in that same direction.
But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where you will;
commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may;
you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my
heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend."
Do you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they
thought that when the Saviour said "Suffer little children to come unto
me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-hide under his
mantle, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking
distance?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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