My friend Julian Haydon has created a website dedicated to the great agnostic, Robert G. Ingersoll. The site is set out like a newspaper and is a labour of love. Please check it out – the link is below. To give respect to both men, I will be posting some Ingersoll delights once a month to acquaint people with his genius. (Please visit theingersolltimes.com for more on this great man in a lively newspaper format.)
THOUGHTS ON CHRISTMAS — 1891
Robert G. Ingersoll
(theingersolltimes.com)
It is beautiful to give one day to the ideal –to have one day apart;
one day for generous deeds, for good will, for gladness;
one day to forget the shadows, the rains, the storms of life;
to remember the sunshine, the happiness of youth and health;
one day to forget the briers and thorns of the winding path, to remember the fruits and flowers;
one day in which to feed the hungry, to salute the poor and lowly;
one day to feel the brotherhood of man;
one day to remember the heroic and loving deeds of the dead;
one day to get acquainted with children, to remember the old, the unfortunate and the imprisoned;
one day in which to forget yourself and think lovingly of others;
one day for the family, for the fireside, for wife and children, for the love and laughter, the joy and rapture, of home;
one day in which bonds and stocks and deeds and notes and interest and mortgages and all kinds of business and trade are forgotten, and all stores and shops and factories and offices and banks and ledgers and accounts and lawsuits are cast aside, put away and locked up, and the weary heart and brain are given a voyage to fairyland.
Let us hope that such a day is a prophecy of what all days will be.