It was a very cold, grey day in January. A persistent drizzle accompanied by a cold storm added to the misery of the little group that had gathered near an open grave. A young child was being buried. The mother sobbed brokenly, and beside her stood the child's father, shattered and anguished.
A few feet away, a bare-headed man, with his heart filled with sympathy for the bereaved and stricken parents, stood in a pensive mood; a man whose name was known throughout the United States. He was a brilliant lawyer, a famous writer, lecturer and one of the most eloquent and dynamic orators of his day. He was also a free-thinker in matters of religion; and he had come to be known, disdainfully by some, as 'The Great Agnostic'. He was Robert Green Ingersoll (1833-1899). Ingersoll is too little known today. Yet he was the foremost orator and political speech maker of late 19th Century America. He was perhaps the best-known American of the post-Civil War era.
The undertaker of the grave stepped up to him and asked touching his arm, 'Will you say a few words, Mr Ingersoll?' But Ingersoll shook his head, 'No. No, I couldn't do that'. Then he saw the father's face, saw his look of anguish, and appealed. 'Does he desire it?, Does he wish me to speak?'.
The undertaker nodded; and Robert Green Ingersoll walked at once to the edge of the grave, stood beside the little coffin. He spoke solemnly, slowly, with infinite tenderness and compassion: 'My friends: I know how vain it is to gild a grief with words, and yet I wish to take from every grave its fear. Here in this world, where life and death are equal kings, all should be brave enough to meet what all the dead have met. The future has been filled with fear, stained and polluted by the heartless past. From the wondrous tree of life the buds and blossoms fall with ripened fruit, and in the common bed of earth, patriarchs and babes sleep side by side.
His only thought was to give them comfort and consolation, to ease the burden of their pain. As concluding words, he said: 'If somewhere else there is another dawn, if somewhere else your child lives again, surely its life will be as good as ours. So be comforted. Take up your daily lives; help each other; hope that some day you will know and love again the child you loved here'.
Surely it was a masterpiece of delicacy and understanding. It struck a responsive chord in every heart, and none who heard his words that day ever forgot them. He was later asked to repeat the words as nearly as he could, and they were published for the comfort of the bereaved parents.
'What other orator, ancient or modern, could have planted on the grave of a child a flower as delicate as this?' asks Ingersoll's biographer Herman E Kittredge. Robert Green Ingersoll's famous oration at the grave of a child is today regarded by many as a classic of inspiration. It has long been a source of comfort to people of all faiths in the dark hour of bereavement, and it remains an enduring monument to the memory of Robert Green Ingersoll.
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