| <trailer><p> <Socialist 14 May 1909> </p></trailer> 
| <headline><p> <At The Bijou. Ingersoll and> 
| <Revivalism. Big House Cheers Frank Hyett in>
| <Honoring the Memory and Message of Robert> 
| <Ingersoll. Holland's Release Demanded.> 
| </p> </headline>
| <p> Again was the Bijou Theatre almost packed to 
| the doors on Sunday night, when Mr Frank Hyett 
| brilliantly lectured upon 
| <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo">
| "Robert G. Ingersoll, the Man and his 
| Message" </title> and supplementary thereto 
| dissected revivalism and the Chapman-Alexander 
| mission. The audience was in the main 
| appreciative, and as a whole markedly attentive. 
| Mr J Curtin presided. </p>
| <p> During the evening the customary collective 
| singing was heartily indulged in. The orchestra 
| under Mr Wm. Spangler's skilful baton, rendered a 
| couple of enjoyable selections, while the choir 
| bracketed <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo">
| "Awake Sweet Love" </title> 
| <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo">
| "Now is the Time of 
| Maying," </title> as its applauded item. Miss 
| Bertha Gross very sweetly gave 
| <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo"> "Bonnie Mary of 
| Argyll," </title> and was bounteously approved. Mr 
| Levien, with the S.P. Banner as his text, recited 
| a piece of his own composition, entitled 
| <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo"> "Against the 
| Enemy." </title> The band played in the arcade with 
| its usual gracefulness. Mrs Mann, Miss Young, and 
| Miss Ruby Paxton accompanied at the 
| pianoforte. </p>
| <p> Mr N. Anderson briefly addressed those present 
| upon the position of the Socialist Co-operative 
| Society, and urged the Society's claims to 
| increased support. A few Swedish comrades were 
| right warmly welcomed to Melbourne. The Broken 
| Hill friends who were in Melbourne for the Sunday 
| <mdash>-</mdash> seven or eight of them 
| <mdash>-</mdash> were tendered an ovation. Mr Syd. 
| Robinson and F.A. Beck each said a few words 
| brightly and with enthusiastic approval. </p>
| <p> Mrs Katz ably moved the following resolution: 
| <mdash>-</mdash> <q> 
| <q> In a speechlet of restrained 
| feeling, Mrs Katz declared of the agents of 
| capitalism, <q> 
| </q> Holland's sacrifice must not 
| be in vain. Australian Socialism had a duty to 
| perform. And as many as were jailed, as many 
| others would take their places. The resolution was 
| put by the chairman asking all in favour to shout 
| <mdash>-</mdash> and the answering shout shook the 
| building. </p>
| <p> At seven minutes past eight Mr Hyett was called 
| upon. He was magnificently received. After 
| commenting briefly upon the Albury sentences of 
| working-class fighters, he proceeded to 
| acknowledge the indebtedness of Socialism to the 
| secularist movement, and thanked secularism for 
| the intellectual atmosphere it had created. But it 
| was also necessary to remove political and 
| economic superstition and he ventured to claim 
| Socialism deserved the support of all 
| rationalists. </p>
| <p> Dealing with Ingersoll, the lecturer sketched 
| his life, and next surveyed him as lawyer, as 
| politician and soldier, as orator and agnostic. In 
| what fine passages he did homage to Ingersoll's 
| genius, and with what impassioned eloquence he 
| defended his loftiness of thought, greatness of 
| life, and fight for free and clear thinking, we 
| shall not attempt to portray. He made his points 
| well; said that even Christianity owed a debt to 
| Ingersoll, emphasised that Ingersoll did not 
| attack the Bible for the fun of it, and by 
| quotations and deductions indicated Ingersoll's 
| charm and force in manner and method. The lecturer 
| reached his height in calling upon the people to 
| teach their children how to make this world purer, 
| sweeter and grander. His peroration included a 
| striking tribute to Colonel Ingersoll's 
| <q> 
| </q></p>
| <p> As to revivalism, Mr Hyett read an unanswered 
| letter he had sent to Dr Chapman relative to the 
| latter's remarks upon Ingersoll and also one 
| received from the Rev F. Sinclaire. He stigmatised 
| the present "revival" as a travesty upon true 
| religion, and claimed that revivalism didn't help 
| in working class emancipation. </p>
| <p> The Chapman meetings were morally harmful, and 
| were calculated to chloroform the workers in 
| respect to immediate social needs. Touching Dr 
| Chapman's discourse of that day, he (Mr Hyett) was 
| there to say the iron did not swim, and to further 
| say there was no teaching so ruinous and 
| fallacious as that salvation or emancipation was 
| by belief, and not by works. God had made no man 
| his mouthpiece to speak contrary to fact. Every 
| man had the right to think and to his opinion. 
| There was no question so sacred as to be above 
| intellectual consideration. </p>
| <p> The lecturer, in the course of his remarks, 
| several times recurred to the need of more 
| assertive rationalist propaganda in Melbourne, and 
| these sentiments were always applausively 
| endorsed. </p>
| <p> On Sunday night next the speaker will be the 
| Rev F. Sinclaire, on <title rend="PRE lsquo POST rsquo">
| "The Shame of our Streets." </title> </p>