A Religious Orgy in Tennessee (15 page)

BRYAN:
Not very accurately. I turn back sometimes to see what the time was.

DARROW:
You want to say now, you have no idea how these dates were computed?

BRYAN:
No, I don't say. But I have told you what my idea was. I say I don't know how accurate it was.

DARROW:
You say from the generation of man.…

STEWART:
I am objecting to his cross-examining his own witnesses.

DARROW:
He is a hostile witness.

JUDGE RAULSTON:
I am going to let Mr. Bryan control.

BRYAN:
I want to give him all the latitude that he wants, for I am going to have some latitude when he gets through.

DARROW:
You can have latitude and longitude. [Laughter.]

JUDGE RAULSTON:
Order.

STEWART:
The witness is entitled to be examined as to the legal evidence of it. We were supposed to go into the origin of this case, and we have nearly lost the day, Your Honor.

MCKENZIE (FOR THE PROSECUTION):
I object to it.

STEWART:
Your Honor, he is perfectly able to take care of this, but we are attaining no evidence. This is not competent evidence.

BRYAN:
These gentlemen have not had much chance. They did not come here to try this case. They came here to try revealed religion. I am here to defend it, and they can ask me any questions they please.

JUDGE RAULSTON:
All right. [Applause.]

DARROW:
Great applause from the bleachers.

BRYAN:
From those whom you call “yokels.”

DARROW:
I have never called them yokels.

BRYAN:
That is the ignorance of Tennessee, the bigotry.

DARROW:
You mean who are applauding you?

BRYAN:
Those are the people whom you insult.

DARROW:
You insult every man of science and learning in the world because he does not believe in your fool religion.

JUDGE
RAULSTON:
I will not stand for that.

DARROW:
For what he is doing?

JUDGE
RAULSTON:
I am talking to both of you.

STEWART:
This has gone beyond the pale of a lawsuit, your Honor. I have a public duty to perform under my oath, and I ask the court to stop it. Mr. Darrow is making an effort to insult the gentleman on the witness stand, and I ask that this be stopped, for it has gone beyond the pale of a lawsuit.

JUDGE
RAULSTON:
To stop it now would not be just to Mr. Bryan. He wants to ask the other gentleman questions along the same line.

STEWART:
It will all be incompetent.

BRYAN:
The jury is not here.

JUDGE
RAULSTON:
I do not want to be strictly technical.

DARROW:
Then Your Honor rules and I accept. How long ago was the flood, Mr. Bryan?

BRYAN:
Let me see Ussher's calculation about it.
^*

DARROW:
Surely. [Hands a Bible to Bryan.]

BRYAN:
I think this does not give it.

DARROW:
It gives an account of Noah. Where is the one in evidence? I am quite certain it is there.

BRYAN:
Oh, I would put the estimate where it is, because I have no reason to vary it. But I would have to look at it to give you the exact date.

DARROW:
I would, too. Do you remember what book the account is in?

BRYAN:
Genesis … It is given here as 2348 years before Christ.

DARROW:
Well, 2348 years BC. You believe that all the living things that were not contained in the ark were destroyed?

BRYAN:
I think the fish may have lived.

DARROW:
Outside of the fish?

BRYAN:
I cannot say.

DARROW:
You cannot say?

BRYAN:
No, except that just as it is, I have no proof to the contrary.

DARROW:
I am asking you whether you believe it.

BRYAN:
I do.

DARROW:
That all living things outside of the fish were destroyed.

BRYAN:
What I say about the fish is merely a matter of humor.

DARROW:
I understand.

BRYAN:
Due to the fact that a man wrote up here the other day to ask whether all the fish were destroyed, and the gentleman who received the letter told him the fish may have lived.

DARROW:
I am referring to the fish too.

BRYAN:
I accept that as the Bible gives it, and I have never found any reason for denying, disputing, or rejecting it.

DARROW:
Let us make it definite: 2,348 years?

BRYAN:
I didn't say that. That is the time given, but I don't pretend to say that is exact.

DARROW:
You never figured it out, those generations, by yourself?

BRYAN:
No, sir, not myself.

DARROW:
But the Bible you have offered in evidence says 2340 something, so that 4200 years ago there was not a living thing on earth, excepting the people on the ark and the animals on the ark, and the fishes.

BRYAN:
There had been living things before that.

DARROW:
I mean at that time.

BRYAN:
After that.

DARROW:
Don't you know there are any number of civilizations that are traced back to more than 5,000 years?

BRYAN:
I know we have people who trace things back according to the number of ciphers they have. But I am not satisfied they are accurate.

DARROW:
You are not satisfied that there is any civilization that can be traced back five thousand years?

BRYAN:
I would not want to say there is, because I have no evidence of it that is satisfactory.

DARROW:
Would you say there is not?

BRYAN:
Well, so far as I know, but when the scientists differ from twenty-four millions to three hundred millions in their opinions as to how long ago life came here, I want them to be nearer, to come nearer together, before they demand of me to give up my belief in the Bible.

DARROW:
Do you say that you do not believe that there were any civilizations on this earth that reach back beyond five thousand years?

BRYAN:
I am not satisfied by any evidence that I have seen.

DARROW:
I didn't ask you what you are satisfied with—I asked you if you believed it.

BRYAN:
Will you let me answer it?

JUDGE RAULSTON:
Go right on.

BRYAN:
I am satisfied by no evidence that I have found that would justify me in accepting the opinions of these men against what I believe to be the inspired word of God.

DARROW:
And you believe every nation, every organization of men, every animal in the world outside of the fishes—

BRYAN:
The fish, I want you to understand, is merely a matter of humor.

DARROW:
I believe the Bible says so. Take the fishes in?

BRYAN:
Let us get together and look over this.

DARROW:
Probably we would better. We will after we get through. You believe that all the various human races on the earth have come into being in the last four thousand years or four thousand two hundred years, whatever it is?

BRYAN:
No; it would be more than that. Sometime after the creation, before the flood.

DARROW:
1925 added to it?

BRYAN:
The flood is 2300 and something; and creation, according to the estimate there, is further back than that.

DARROW:
Then you don't understand me. If we don't get together on it, look at the book. This is the year of grace 1925, isn't it? Let us put down 1925. Have you got a pencil? [One of the defense attorneys hands Darrow a pencil.]

BRYAN:
Add that to 4,004?

DARROW:
Yes.

BRYAN:
That is the date given here on the first page, according to Bishop Ussher, which I say I accept only because I have no reason to doubt it.

DARROW:
1925 plus 4004 is 5,929 years. Now then, what do you subtract from that?

BRYAN:
That is the beginning.

DARROW:
I was talking about the flood.

BRYAN:
2348 on that, we said.

DARROW:
Less that?

BRYAN:
No, subtract that from 4000. It would be about 1700 years.

DARROW:
That is the same thing.

BRYAN:
No. Subtracted, it is 2300 and something before the beginning of the Christian era, about 1700 years after the Creation.

DARROW:
If I add 2300 years, that is the beginning of the Christian era?

BRYAN:
Yes, sir.

DARROW:
If I add 1925 to that I will get it, won't I?

BRYAN:
Yes, sir.

DARROW:
That makes 4,262 years?

BRYAN:
According to the Bible there was a civilization before that, destroyed by the flood.

DARROW:
Let me make this definite. You believe that every civilization on the earth and every living thing, except possibly the fishes, that came out of the ark, were wiped out by the flood?

BRYAN:
At that time.

DARROW:
At that time; and then whatever human beings, including all the tribes that inhabited the world, and have inhabited the world, and who run their pedigree
straight back, and all the animals, have come on to the earth since the flood?

BRYAN:
Yes.

DARROW:
Within 4200 years. Do you know a scientific man on the earth that believes any such thing?

BRYAN:
I cannot say. But I know some scientific men who dispute entirely the antiquity of man as testified to by other scientific men.

DARROW:
Only that does not answer the question. Do you know of a single scientific man on the face of the earth that believes any such thing as you stated, about the antiquity of man?

BRYAN:
I don't think I have ever asked one the direct question.

DARROW:
Quite important, isn't it?

BRYAN:
Well, I don't know as it is.

DARROW:
It might not be?

BRYAN:
If I had nothing else to do except speculate on what our remote ancestors were and what our remote descendants have been, but I have been more interested in Christians going on right now, to make it much more important than speculations on either the past or the future.

DARROW:
You have never had any interest in the age of the various races and people and civilizations and animals that exist upon the earth today. Is that right?

BRYAN:
I have never felt a great deal of interest in the effort that has been made to dispute the Bible by the speculations of men, or the investigations of men.

DARROW:
Are you the only human being on earth who knows what the Bible means?

STEWART:
I object.

JUDGE RAULSTON:
Sustained.

DARROW:
You do know that there are thousands of people who profess to be Christians who believe the earth is much more ancient and that the human race is much more ancient?

BRYAN:
I think there may be.

DARROW:
And you never have investigated to find out

how long man has been on the earth?

BRYAN:
I have never found it necessary to examine every speculation; but if I had done it I never would have done anything else.

DARROW:
I ask for a direct answer.

BRYAN:
I do not expect to find out all those things. I do not expect to find out about races.

DARROW:
I didn't ask you that. Now, I ask you if you know, if it was interesting enough, or important enough for you to try to find out how old these ancient civilizations are?

BRYAN:
No, I have not made a study of it.

DARROW:
Don't you know that the ancient civilizations of China are six or seven thousand years old at the very least?

BRYAN:
No; but they would not run back beyond the creation, according to the Bible six thousand years.

DARROW:
You don't know how old they are, is that right?

BRYAN:
I don't know how old they are, but possibly you do. [Laughter.] I think you would give the preference to anybody who opposed the Bible, and I give the preference to the Bible.

DARROW:
I see. Well, you are welcome to your opinion. Have you any idea how old the Egyptian civilization is?

BRYAN:
No.

DARROW:
Do you know of any record in the world, outside of the story of the Bible, which conforms to any statement that it is 4,200 years ago or thereabouts, that all life was wiped off the face of the earth?

BRYAN:
I think they have found records.

DARROW:
Do you know of any?

BRYAN:
Records reciting the flood, but I am not an authority on the subject.

DARROW:
Now, Mr. Bryan: will you say if you know of any record, or have ever heard of any records that describe that a flood existed 4,200 years ago, or about that time, which wiped all life off the earth?