Could I but acquaint the world with Robert G. Ingersoll's humanity, with his ideas and his sentiments of love, patience and understanding, a renascence would automatically take place that would give life and living on this little earth of ours some semblance of what we call paradise.

And this great and wonderful man had to die!

I do not know the purpose of life, nor do I understand why death should come to all that is; but this I do know -- that when Robert G. Ingersoll died, on July 21, 1899, then you and I, and the whole world, suffered a mortal blow.

When the mighty heart, of his mighty body, that supplied the blood to his mighty brain, burst, never again was there to fall from his eloquent lips the pearls of thought that had been so wondrously formed in his brain.

The mightiest voice in all the world was silenced, forever. No wonder the people wept when they heard that Ingersoll was dead.

He was the greatest of the Great -- the Mightiest of the Mighty. He was 'as constant as the Northern Star whose true fixed and resting quality there is no fellow in the firmament.' He was the indistinguishable star whose brilliance never dimmed.

When Robert G. Ingersoll died, his death was 'the ruins of the noblest man that ever lived in the tide of time ... When shall we ever see another?'

When Robert G. Ingersoll died, the sky should have been rent asunder, and Nature should have gone into mourning.

When this man died, Nature's masterpiece was destroyed, and hot tears of grief should have fallen from the heavens.

Robert G. Ingersoll no longer belongs to his family;

He no longer belongs to his friends;

He no longer belongs to his country;

Robert G. Ingersoll now belongs to all the world -- the whole universe --

He is immortal and eternal.

Among the galaxies of Nature's masterpieces, none shine with a greater brilliance than the babe who was born in this house 121 years ago today, and named Robert Green Ingersoll.