{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_30208/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_30208","id":"gutenberg_30208","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/30208","summary":null,"tags":["Category: Essays, Letters & Speeches","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Free thought"],"text":"THE GHOSTS\n\nAND OTHER LECTURES.\n\n\nBy Robert G. Ingersoll.\n\n     New York, N. Y. C.\n     P. FARRELL, PUBLISHER,\n     1892.\n\n     Entered according to Act of Congress in the year 1878,\n     by Robert G. Ingersoll\n     ECKLER, PRINTER,  35 FULTON ST., N. Y.\n\n\n\n     The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and\n     flowed in the human heart, with its countless waves of hope\n     and fear, beating against the shores and rocks of time and\n     fate, was not born of any book, nor of any creed, nor of any\n     religion. It was born of human affection, and it will\n     continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of\n     doubt and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS:\n\n     PREFACE.\n     THE GHOSTS.\n     THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD\n     LIBERTY OF WOMAN.\n     THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.\n     CONCLUSION.\n     1776. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.\n     ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.\n     SPEECH AT CINCINNATI\n     \"THE PAST RISES BEFORE ME LIKE A DREAM.\"\n     THE GRANT BANQUET\n     A TRIBUTE TO THE Rev. ALEXANDER CLARK.\n     A TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL,\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\nThese lectures have been so maimed and mutilated by orthodox malice;\nhave been made to appear so halt, crutched and decrepit by those who\nmistake the pleasures of calumny for the duties of religion, that in\nsimple justice to myself I concluded to publish them.\n\nMost of the clergy are, or seem to be, utterly incapable of discussing\nanything in a fair and catholic spirit. They appeal, not to reason,\nbut to prejudice; not to facts, but to passages of scripture. They can\nconceive of no goodness, of no spiritual exaltation beyond the horizon\nof their creed. Whoever differs with them upon what they are pleased to\ncall \"fundamental truths\" is, in their opinion, a base and infamous man.\nTo re-enact the tragedies of the Sixteenth Century, they lack only\nthe power. Bigotry in all ages has been the same. Christianity simply\ntransferred the brutality of the Colosseum to the Inquisition. For the\nmurderous combat of the gladiators, the saints substituted the _auto de\nfe_. What has been called religion is, after all, but the organization\nof the wild beast in man. The perfumed blossom of arrogance is Heaven.\nHell is the consummation of revenge.\n\nThe chief business of the clergy has always been to destroy the joy of\nlife, and multiply and magnify the terrors and tortures of death and\nperdition. They have polluted the heart and paralyzed the brain; and\nupon the ignorant altars of the Past and the Dead, they have endeavored\nto sacrifice the Present and the Living.\n\nNothing can exceed the mendacity of the religious press. I have had some\nlittle experience with political editors, and am forced to say, that\nuntil I read the religious papers, I did not know what malicious and\nslimy falsehoods could be constructed from ordinary words. The ingenuity\nwith which the real and apparent meaning can be tortured out of\nlanguage, is simply amazing. The average religious editor is intolerant\nand insolent; he knows nothing of affairs; he has the envy of failure,\nthe malice of impotence, and always accounts for the brave and generous\nactions of unbelievers, by low, base and unworthy motives.\n\nBy this time, even the clergy should know that the intellect of the\nNineteenth Century needs no, guardian. They should cease to regard\nthemselves as shepherds defending flocks of weak, silly and fearful\nsheep from the claws and teeth of ravening wolves. By this time they\nshould know that the religion of the ignorant and brutal Past no\nlonger satisfies the heart and brain; that the miracles have become\ncontemptible; that the \"evidences\" have ceased to convince; that the\nspirit of investigation cannot be stopped nor stayed; that the Church\nis losing her power; that the young are holding in a kind of tender\ncontempt the sacred follies of the old; that the pulpit and pews no\nlonger represent the culture and morality of the world, and that the\nbrand of intellectual inferiority is upon the orthodox brain.\n\nMen should be liberated from the aristocracy of the air. Every chain\nof superstition should be broken. The rights of men and women should\nbe equal and sacred--marriage should be a perfect partnership--children\nshould be governed by kindness,--every family should be a\nrepublic--every fireside a democracy.\n\nIt seems almost impossible for religious people to really grasp the idea\nof intellectual freedom. They seem to think that man is responsible for\nhis honest thoughts; that unbelief is a crime; that investigation is\nsinful; that credulity is a virtue, and that reason is a dangerous\nguide. They cannot divest themselves of the idea that in the realm of\nthought there must be government--authority and obedience--laws and\npenalties--rewards and punishments, and that somewhere in the universe\nthere is a penitentiary for the soul.\n\nIn the republic of mind, _one_ is a majority. There, all are monarchs,\nand all are equals. The tyranny of a majority even is unknown. Each one\nis crowned, sceptered and throned. Upon every brow is the tiara, and\naround every form is the imperial purple. Only those are good citizens\nwho express their honest thoughts, and those who persecute for opinion's\nsake, are the only traitors. There, nothing is considered infamous\nexcept an appeal to brute force, and nothing sacred but love, liberty,\nand joy. The church contemplates this republic with a sneer. From the\nteeth of hatred she draws back the lips of scorn. She is filled with the\nspite and spleen born of intellectual weakness. Once she was egotistic;\nnow she is envious.\n\nOnce she wore upon her hollow breast false gems, supposing them to be\nreal. They have been shown to be false, but she wears them still. She\nhas the malice of the caught, the hatred of the exposed.\n\nWe are told to investigate the bible for ourselves, and at the same time\ninformed that if we come to the conclusion that it is not the inspired\nword of God, we will most assuredly be damned. Under such circumstances,\nif we believe this, investigation is impossible. Whoever is held\nresponsible for his conclusions cannot weigh the evidence with impartial\nscales. Fear stands at the balance, and gives to falsehood the weight of\nits trembling hand.\n\nI oppose the Church because she is the enemy of liberty; because her\ndogmas are infamous and cruel; because she humiliates and degrades\nwoman; because she teaches the doctrines of eternal torment and the\nnatural depravity of man; because she insists upon the absurd, the\nimpossible, and the senseless; because she resorts to falsehood and\nslander; because she is arrogant and revengeful; because she allows men\nto sin on a credit; because she discourages self-reliance, and laughs\nat good works; because she believes in vicarious virtue and vicarious\nvice--vicarious punishment and vicarious reward; because she regards\nrepentance of more importance than restitution, and because she\nsacrifices the world we have to one we know not of.\n\nThe free and generous, the tender and affectionate, will understand me.\nThose who have escaped from the grated cells of a creed will appreciate\nmy motives. The sad and suffering wives, the trembling and loving\nchildren will thank me: This is enough.\n\nRobert G. Ingersoll.\n\nWashington, D. C,\n\nApril 13, 1878.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE GHOSTS.\n\n\n     Let them cover their Eyeless Sockets with their\n     Fleshless Hands and fade forever from the imagination of Men.\n\n\nTHERE are three theories by which men account for all phenomena,\nfor everything that happens: First, the Supernatural; Second, the\nSupernatural and Natural; Third, the Natural. Between these theories\nthere has been, from the dawn of civilization, a continual conflict. In\nthis great war, nearly all the soldiers have been in the ranks of the\nsupernatural. The believers in the supernatural insist that matter\nis controlled and directed entirely by powers from without; while\nnaturalists maintain that Nature acts from within; that Nature is not\nacted upon; that the universe is all there is; that Nature with infinite\narms embraces everything that exists, and that all supposed powers\nbeyond the limits of the material are simply ghosts. You say, \"Oh, this\nis materialism!\" What is matter? I take in my hand some earth:--in this\ndust put seeds. Let the arrows of light from the quiver of the sun smite\nupon it; let the rain fall upon it. The seeds will grow and a plant will\nbud and blossom. Do you understand this? Can you explain it better than\nyou can the production of thought? Have you the slightest conception of\nwhat it really is? And yet you speak of matter as though acquainted with\nits origin, as though you had torn from the clenched hands of the rocks\nthe secrets of material existence. Do you know what force is? Can you\naccount for molecular action? Are you really familiar with chemistry,\nand can you account for the loves and hatreds of the atoms? Is there not\nsomething in matter that forever eludes? After all, can you get, beyond,\nabove or below appearances? Before you cry \"materialism!\" had you not\nbetter ascertain what matter really is? Can you think even of anything\nwithout a material basis? Is it possible to imagine the annihilation of\na single atom? Is it possible for you to conceive of the creation of an\natom? Can you have a thought that was not suggested to you by what you\ncall matter?\n\nOur fathers denounced materialism, and accounted for all phenomena by\nthe caprice of gods and devils.\n\nFor thousands of years it was believed that ghosts, good and bad,\nbenevolent and malignant, weak and powerful, in some mysterious way,\nproduced all phenomena; that disease and health, happiness and misery,\nfortune and misfortune, peace and war, life and death, success and\nfailure, were but arrows from the quivers of these ghosts; that shadowy\nphantoms rewarded and punished mankind; that they were pleased and\ndispleased by the actions of men; that they sent and withheld the snow,\nthe light, and the rain; that they blessed the earth with harvests or\ncursed it with famine; that they fed or starved the children of men;\nthat they crowned and uncrowned kings; that they took sides in war; that\nthey controlled the winds; that they gave prosperous voyages, allowing\nthe brave mariner to meet his wife and child inside the harbor bar, or\nsent the storms, strewing the sad shores with wrecks of ships and the\nbodies of men.\n\nFormerly, these ghosts were believed to be almost innumerable. Earth,\nair, and water were filled with these phantom hosts. In modern times\nthey have greatly decreased in number, because the second theory,--a\nmingling of the supernatural and natural,--has generally been adopted.\nThe remaining ghosts, however, are supposed to per-form the same offices\nas the hosts of yore.\n\nIt has always been believed that these ghosts could in some way be\nappeased; that they could be flattered by sacrifices, by prayer, by\nfasting, by the building of temples and cathedrals, by the blood of\nmen and beasts, by forms and ceremonies, by chants, by kneelings and\nprostrations, by flagellations and maimings, by renouncing the joys of\nhome, by living alone in the wide desert, by the practice of celibacy,\nby inventing instruments of torture, by destroying men, women and\nchildren, by covering the earth with dungeons, by burning unbelievers,\nby putting chains upon the thoughts and manacles upon the limbs of\nmen, by believing things without evidence and against evidence, by\ndisbelieving and denying demonstration, by despising facts, by hating\nreason, by denouncing liberty, by maligning heretics, by slandering\nthe dead, by subscribing to senseless and cruel creeds, by discouraging\ninvestigation, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity,\nby observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at\ncrosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning\ncandles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the\neyes of the soul. All this has been done to appease and flatter these\nmonsters of the air.\n\nIn the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy\nhas been left undone by the believers in ghosts,--by the worshipers of\nthese fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice\nand malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas\nof ignorance by that artist called superstition.\n\nFrom, these ghosts, our fathers received information. They were\nthe schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the scientists and\nphilosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians,\nmetaphysicians and historians of the past. For ages these ghosts were\nsupposed to be the only source of real knowledge. They inspired men to\nwrite books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were found\nto be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts,\nand especially for their discoverers. It was then, and still is,\nbelieved that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that\nto give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is\nto renounce the idea of immortality. This I deny.\n\nThe idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the\nhuman heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against\nthe shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of\nany creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it\nwill continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt\nand darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the\nrainbow--Hope shining upon the tears of grief.\n\nFrom the books written by the ghosts we, have at last ascertained\nthat they knew nothing about the world in which we live. Did they\nknow anything about the next! Upon every point where contradiction is\npossible, they have been contradicted.\n\nBy these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government\nwere administered; all authority to govern came from them. The emperors,\nkings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. Man was\nnot considered as the source of any power whatever. To rebel against the\nking was to rebel against the ghosts, and nothing less than the blood of\nthe offender could appease the invisible phantom or the visible tyrant.\nKneeling was the proper position to be assumed by the multitude.\nThe prostrate were the good. Those who stood erect were infidels and\ntraitors. In the name and by the authority of the ghosts, man was\nenslaved, crushed, and plundered. The many toiled wearily in the storm\nand sun that the few favorites of the ghosts might live in idleness.\nThe many lived in huts, and caves, and dens, that the few might dwell in\npalaces. The many covered themselves with rags, that the few might\nrobe themselves in purple and in gold. The many crept, and cringed, and\ncrawled, that the few might tread upon their flesh with iron feet.\n\nFrom the ghosts men received, not only authority, but information of\nevery kind. They told us the form of this earth. They informed us that\neclipses were caused by the sins of man; that the universe was made\nin six days; that astronomy, and geology were devices of wicked men,\ninstigated by wicked ghosts; that gazing at the sky with a telescope\nwas a dangerous thing; that digging into the earth was sinful curiosity;\nthat trying to be wise above what they had written was born of a\nrebellious and irreverent spirit.\n\nThey told us there was no virtue like belief, and no crime like doubt;\nthat investigation was pure impudence, and the punishment therefor,\neternal torment. They not only told us all about this world, but about\ntwo others; and if their statements about the other worlds are as true\nas about this, no one can estimate the value of their information.\n\nFor countless ages the world was governed by ghosts, and they spared no\npains to change the eagle of the human intellect into a bat of darkness.\nTo accomplish this infamous purpose; to drive the love of truth from the\nhuman heart; to prevent the advancement of mankind; to shut out from\nthe world every ray of intellectual light; to pollute every mind with\nsuperstition, the power of kings, the cunning and cruelty of priests,\nand the wealth of nations were exhausted.\n\nDuring these years of persecution, ignorance, superstition and slavery,\nnearly all the people, the kings, lawyers, doctors, the learned and the\nunlearned, believed in that frightful production of ignorance, fear, and\nfaith, called witchcraft. They believed that man was the sport and prey\nof devils. They really thought that the very air was thick with these\nenemies of man. With few exceptions, this hideous and infamous belief\nwas universal. Under these conditions, progress was almost impossible.\n\nFear paralyzes the brain. Progress is born of courage. Fear\nbelieves--courage doubts. Fear falls upon the earth and prays--courage\nstands erect and thinks. Fear retreats--courage advances. Fear is\nbarbarism--courage is civilization. Fear believes in witchcraft, in\ndevils and in ghosts. Fear is religion--courage is science.\n\nThe facts, upon which this terrible belief rested, were proved over\nand over again in every court of Europe. Thousands confessed themselves\nguilty--admitted that they had sold themselves to the devil. They gave\nthe particulars of the sale; told what they said and what the devil\nreplied. They confessed this, when they knew that confession was death;\nknew that their property would be confiscated, and their children left\nto beg their bread. This is one of the miracles of history--one of the\nstrangest contradictions of the human mind. Without doubt, they really\nbelieved themselves guilty. In the first place, they believed in\nwitchcraft as a fact, and when charged with it, they probably became\ninsane. In their insanity they confessed their guilt. They found\nthemselves abhorred and deserted--charged with a crime that they could\nnot disprove. Like a man in quicksand, every effort only sunk them\ndeeper. Caught in this frightful web, at the mercy of the spiders\nof superstition, hope fled, and nothing remained but the insanity of\nconfession. The whole world appeared to be insane.\n\nIn the time of James the First, a man was executed for causing a storm\nat sea with the intention of drowning one of the royal family. How could\nhe disprove it? How could he show that he did not cause the storm?\nAll storms were at that time generally supposed to be caused by\nthe devil--the prince of the power of the air--and by those whom he\nassisted.\n\nI implore you to remember that the believers in such impossible things\nwere the authors of our creeds and confessions of faith.\n\nA woman was tried and convicted before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the\ngreat judges and lawyers of England, for having caused children to\nvomit crooked pins. She was also charged with having nursed devils. The\nlearned judge charged the intelligent jury that there was no doubt as\nto the existence of witches; that it was established by all history, and\nexpressly taught by the bible.\n\nThe woman was hanged and her body burned.\n\nSir Thomas Moore declared that to give up witchcraft was to throw away\nthe sacred scriptures. In my judgment, he was right.\n\nJohn Wesley was a firm believer in ghosts and witches, and insisted upon\nit, years after all laws upon the subject had been repealed in England.\nI beg of you to remember that John Wesley was the founder of the\nMethodist Church.\n\nIn New England, a woman was charged with being a witch, and with having\nchanged herself into a fox. While in that condition she was attacked and\nbitten by some dogs. A committee of three men, by order of the court,\nexamined this woman. They removed her clothing and searched for \"witch\nspots.\" That is to say, spots into which needles could be thrust without\ngiving her pain. They reported to the court that such spots were found.\nShe denied, however, that she ever had changed herself into a fox. Upon\nthe report of the committee she was found guilty and actually executed.\nThis was done by our Puritan fathers, by the gentlemen who braved the\ndangers of the deep for the sake of worshiping God and persecuting their\nfellow men.\n\nIn those days people believed in what was known as lycanthropy--that is,\nthat persons, with the assistance of the devil, could assume the form\nof wolves. An instance is given where a man was attacked by a wolf. He\ndefended himself, and succeeded in cutting off one of the animal's paws.\nThe wolf ran away. The man picked up the paw, put it in his pocket and\ncarried it home. There he found his wife with one of her hands gone. He\ntook the paw from his pocket. It had changed to a human hand. He charged\nhis wife with being a witch. She was tried. She confessed her guilt, and\nwas burned.\n\nPeople were burned for causing frosts in summer--for destroying crops\nwith hail--for causing storms--for making cows go dry, and even for\nsouring beer. There was no impossibility for which some one was not\ntried and convicted. The life of no one was secure. To be charged,\nwas to be convicted. Every man was at the mercy of every other. This\ninfamous belief was so firmly seated in the minds of the people, that to\nexpress a doubt as to its truth was to be suspected. Whoever denied the\nexistence of witches and devils was denounced as an infidel.\n\nThey believed that animals were often taken possession of by devils, and\nthat the killing of the animal would destroy the devil. They absolutely\ntried, convicted, and executed dumb beasts.\n\nAt Basle, in 1470, a rooster was tried upon the charge of having laid\nan egg. Rooster eggs were used only in making witch ointment,--this\neverybody knew. The rooster was convicted and with all due solemnity was\nburned in the public square. So a hog and six pigs were tried for having\nkilled and partially eaten a child. The hog was convicted,--but the\npigs, on account probably of their extreme youth, were acquitted. As\nlate as 1740, a cow was tried and convicted of being possessed by a\ndevil.\n\nThey used to exorcise rats, locusts, snakes and vermin. They used to go\nthrough the alleys, streets, and fields, and warn them to leave within\na certain number of days. In case they disobeyed, they were threatened\nwith pains and penalties.\n\nBut let us be careful how we laugh at these things. Let us not pride\nourselves too much on the progress of our age. We must not forget that\nsome of our people are yet in the same intelligent business. Only a\nlittle while ago, the governor of Minnesota appointed a day of fasting\nand prayer, to see if some power could not be induced to kill the\ngrasshoppers, or send them into some other state.\n\nAbout the close of the fifteenth century, so great was the excitement\nwith regard to the existence of witchcraft that Pope Innocent VIII\nissued a bull directing the inquisitors to be vigilant in searching\nout and punishing all guilty of this crime. Forms for the trial were\nregularly laid down in a book or a pamphlet called the \"Malleus\nMaleficorum\" (Hammer of Witches), which was issued by the Roman See.\nPopes Alexander, Leo, and Adrian, issued like bulls. For two hundred\nand fifty years the church was busy in punishing the impossible crime of\nwitchcraft; in burning, hanging and torturing men, women, and children.\nProtestants were as active as Catholics, and in Geneva five hundred\nwitches were burned at the stake in a period of three months. About one\nthousand were executed in one year in the diocese of Como. At least one\nhundred thousand victims suffered in Germany alone: the last execution\n(in Wurtzburg ) taking place as late as 1749. Witches were burned in\nSwitzerland as late as 1780.\n\nIn England the same frightful scenes were enacted. Statutes were passed\nfrom Henry VI to James I, defining the crime and its punishment. The\nlast act passed by the British parliament was when Lord Bacon was a\nmember of the House of Commons; and this act was not repealed until\n1736.\n\nSir William Blackstone, in his Commentaries on the Laws of England,\nsays: \"To deny the possibility, nay, actual existence of witchcraft\nand sorcery, is at once flatly to contradict the word of God in various\npassages both of the old and new testament; and the thing itself is\na truth to which every nation in the world hath in its turn borne\ntestimony, either by examples seemingly well attested, or by prohibitory\nlaws, which at least suppose the possibility of a commerce with evil\nspirits.\"\n\nIn Brown's Dictionary of the Bible, published at Edinburgh Scotland, in\n1807, it is said that: \"A witch is a woman that has dealings with Satan.\nThat such persons are among men is abundantly plain from scripture, and\nthat they ought to be put to death.\"\n\nThis work was re-published in Albany, New York, in 1816. No wonder the\nclergy of that city are ignorant and bigoted even unto this day.\n\nIn 1716, Mrs. Hicks and her daughter, nine years of age, were hanged\nfor selling their souls to the devil, and raising a storm by pulling off\ntheir stockings and making a lather of soap.\n\nIn England it has been estimated that at least thirty thousand were\nhanged and burned. The last victim executed in Scotland, perished in\n1722. \"She was an innocent old woman, who had so little idea of her\nsituation as to rejoice at the sight of the fire which was destined\nto consume her. She had a daughter, lame both of hands and of feet--a\ncircumstance attributed to the witch having been used to transform her\ndaughter into a pony and getting her shod by the devil.\"\n\nIn 1692, nineteen persons were executed and one pressed to death in\nSalem, Massachusetts, for the crime of witchcraft.\n\nIt was thought in those days that men and women made compacts with the\ndevil, orally and in writing. That they abjured God and Jesus Christ,\nand dedicated themselves wholly to the devil. The contracts were\nconfirmed at a general meeting of witches and ghosts, over which the\ndevil himself presided; and the persons generally signed the articles of\nagreement with their own blood. These contracts were, in some instances,\nfor a few years; in others, for life. General assemblies of the witches\nwere held at least once a year, at which they appeared entirely naked,\nbesmeared with an ointment made from the bodies of unbaptized infants.\n\"To these meetings they rode from great distances on broomsticks,\npokers, goats, hogs, and dogs. Here they did homage to the prince of\nhell, and offered him sacrifices of young children, and practiced all\nsorts of license until the break of day.\"\n\n\"As late as 1815, Belgium was disgraced by a witch trial; and guilt was\nestablished by the water ordeal.\" \"In 1836, the populace of Hela, near\nDantzic, twice plunged into the sea a woman reputed to be a sorceress;\nand as the miserable creature persisted in rising to the surface, she\nwas pronounced guilty, and beaten to death.\"\n\n\"It was believed that the bodies of devils are not like those of men and\nanimals, cast in an unchangeable mould. It was thought they were like\nclouds, refined and subtle matter, capable of assuming any form and\npenetrating into any orifice. The horrible tortures they endured\nin their place of punishment rendered them extremely sensitive to\nsuffering, and they continually sought a temperate and somewhat moist\nwarmth in order to allay their pangs. It was for this reason they so\nfrequently entered into men and women.\"\n\nThe devil could transport men, at his will, through the air. He could\nbeget children; and Martin Luther himself had come in contact with one\nof these children. He recommended the mother to throw the child into the\nriver, in order to free their house from the presence of a devil.\n\nIt was believed that the devil could transform people into any shape he\npleased.\n\nWhoever denied these things was denounced as an infidel. All the\nbelievers in witchcraft confidently appealed to the bible. Their mouths\nwere filled with passages demonstrating the existence of witches and\ntheir power over human beings. By the bible they proved that innumerable\nevil spirits were ranging over the world endeavoring to ruin mankind;\nthat these spirits possessed a power and wisdom far transcending the\nlimits of human faculties; that they delighted in every misfortune that\ncould befall the world; that their malice was superhuman. That they\ncaused tempests was proved by the action of the devil toward Job; by the\npassage in the book of Revelation describing the four angels who held\nthe four winds, and to whom it was given to afflict the earth. They\nbelieved the devil could carry persons hundreds of miles, in a few\nseconds, through the air. They believed this, because they knew that\nChrist had been carried by the devil in the same manner and placed on a\npinnacle of the temple. \"The prophet Habakkuk had been transported by a\nspirit from Judea to Babylon; and Philip, the evangelist, had been the\nobject of a similar miracle; and in the same way Saint Paul had been\ncarried in the body into the third heaven.\"\n\n\"In those pious days, they believed that _Incubi_ and _Succubi_ were\nforever wandering among mankind, alluring, by more than human charms,\nthe unwary to their destruction, and laying plots, which were too often\nsuccessful, against the virtue of the saints. Sometimes the witches\nkindled in the monastic priest a more terrestrial fire. People told,\nwith bated breath, how, under the spell of a vindictive woman, four\nsuccessive abbots in a German monastery had been wasted away by an\nunholy flame.\"\n\nAn instance is given in which the devil not only assumed the appearance\nof a holy man, in order to pay his addresses to a lady, but when\ndiscovered, crept under the bed, suffered himself to be dragged out,\nand was impudent enough to declare that he was the veritable bishop. So\nperfectly had he assumed the form and features of the prelate that those\nwho knew the bishop best were deceived.\n\nOne can hardly imagine the frightful state of the human mind during\nthese long centuries of darkness and superstition. To them, these things\nwere awful and frightful realities. Hovering above them in the air, in\ntheir houses, in the bosoms of friends, in their very bodies, in all the\ndarkness of night, everywhere, around, above and below, were innumerable\nhosts of unclean and malignant devils.\n\nFrom the malice of those leering and vindictive vampires of the air,\nthe church pretended to defend mankind. Pursued by these phantoms, the\nfrightened multitudes fell upon their faces and implored the aid of\nrobed hypocrisy and sceptered theft.\n\nTake from the orthodox church of to-day the threat and fear of hell, and\nit becomes an extinct volcano.\n\nTake from the church the miraculous, the supernatural, the\nincomprehensible, the unreasonable, the impossible, the unknowable, and\nthe absurd, and nothing but a vacuum remains.\n\nNotwithstanding all the infamous things justly laid to the charge of the\nchurch, we are told that the civilization of to-day is the child of what\nwe are pleased to call the superstition of the past.\n\nReligion has not civilized man--man has civilized religion. God improves\nas man advances.\n\nLet me call your attention to what we have received from the followers\nof the ghosts. Let me give you an outline of the sciences as taught by\nthese philosophers of the clouds.\n\nAll diseases were produced, either as a punishment by the good ghosts,\nor out of pure malignity by the bad ones. There were, properly speaking,\nno diseases. The sick were possessed by ghosts. The science of medicine\nconsisted in knowing how to persuade these ghosts to vacate the\npremises. For thousands of years the diseased were treated with\nincantations, with hideous noises, with drums and gongs. Everything was\ndone to make the visit of the ghost as unpleasant as possible, and they\ngenerally succeeded in making things so disagreeable that if the ghost\ndid not leave, the patient did. These ghosts were supposed to be of\ndifferent rank, power and dignity. Now and then a man pretended to have\nwon the favor of some powerful ghost, and that gave him power over the\nlittle ones. Such a man became an eminent physician.\n\nIt was found that certain kinds of smoke, such as that produced by\nburning the liver of a fish, the dried skin of a serpent, the eyes of\na toad, or the tongue of an adder, were exceedingly offensive to the\nnostrils of an ordinary ghost. With this smoke, the sick room would be\nfilled until the ghost vanished or the patient died.\n\nIt was also believed that certain words,--the names of the most powerful\nghosts,--when properly pronounced, were very effective weapons. It was\nfor a long time thought that Latin words were the best,--Latin being a\ndead language, and known by the clergy. Others thought that two sticks\nlaid across each other and held before the wicked ghost would cause it\ninstantly to flee in dread away.\n\nFor thousands of years, the practice of medicine consisted in driving\nthese evil spirits out of the bodies of men.\n\nIn some instances, bargains and compromises were made with the ghosts.\nOne case is given where a multitude of devils traded a man for a herd\nof swine. In this transaction the devils were the losers, as the swine\nimmediately drowned themselves in the sea. This idea of disease appears\nto have been almost universal, and is by no means yet extinct.\n\nThe contortions of the epileptic, the strange twitchings of those\nafflicted with chorea, the shakings of palsy, dreams, trances, and the\nnumberless frightful phenomena produced by diseases of the nerves, were\nall seized upon as so many proofs that the bodies of men were filled\nwith unclean and malignant ghosts.\n\nWhoever endeavored to account for these things by natural causes,\nwhoever attempted to cure diseases by natural means, was denounced by\nthe church as an infidel. To explain anything was a crime. It was to the\ninterest of the priest that all phenomena should be accounted for by the\nwill and power of gods and devils. The moment it is admitted that all\nphenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a\npriest has disappeared. Religion breathes the air of the supernatural.\nTake from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion\nceases to exist. For this reason, the church has always despised the\nman who explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was\nleft undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as plagues and\npestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. The\nmoment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance.\nThe moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the\nbody, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.\n\nLong after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice\nof medicine, and when it was admitted that God had nothing to do with\nordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful\ndiseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the\npeople. It was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any\nnatural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly, during the\nprevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was\nboundless. He told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that\nthey had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the\ndoctrines of the church, and that God was now taking his revenge. The\npeople for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft.\nThey hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth\nupon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from\ntheir minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the\nvery dust of humility.\n\nThe church never wanted disease to be under the control of man.\nTimothy Dwight, president of Yale College, preached a sermon against\nvaccination. His idea was, that if God had decreed from all eternity\nthat a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin\nto avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox\nbeing regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven,\nto spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues and pestilences were\ninstrumentalities in the hands of God with which to gain the love and\nworship of mankind. To find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from\nthe church. No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has been\nfound altogether more reliable. Just as soon as a specific is found\nfor a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. The\nnumber of diseases with which God from time to time afflicts mankind,\nis continually decreasing. In a few years all of them will be under the\ncontrol of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their\npriests will excite only a smile.\n\nThe science of medicine has had but one enemy--religion. Man was afraid\nto save his body for fear he might lose his soul.\n\nIs it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught\nthe infamous doctrine of eternal punishment--a doctrine that makes God a\nheartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave?\n\nThe ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest\nabsurdities. \"Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying\nno thing.\" In those days the histories were written by the monks, who,\nas a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. They\nwrote as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they\nrelated. They wrote the history of every country of importance. They\ntold all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence that\namounted to sublimity, \"They traced the order of St. Michael, in France,\nto the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a\nchivalric order in heaven itself. They said that Tartars originally came\nfrom hell, and that they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of\nthe names of perdition. They declared that Scotland was so named after\nScota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, invaded Scotland,\nand took it by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter\naddressed to the Pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as\na well-known fact. The letter was written by some of the highest\ndignitaries, and by the direction of the King himself.\"\n\nThese gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the\nfact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell.\n\nMatthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave\nthe world the following piece of information: \"It is well known that\nMohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in\nhis effort to be elected pope;\" and that having drank to excess, he fell\nby the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. \"And for\nthat reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day.\"\n\nAnother eminent historian informs us that Nero was in the habit of\nvomiting frogs. When I read this, I said to myself: Some of the croakers\nof the present day against Progress would be the better for such a\nvomit.\n\nThe history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin, of Rheims. He was a\nbishop. He assures us that the walls of a city fell down in answer\nto prayer. That there were giants in those days who could take fifty\nordinary men under their arms and walk away with them. \"With the\ngreatest of these, a direct descendant of Goliath, one Orlando had a\ntheological discussion, and that in the heat of the debate, when the\ngiant was overwhelmed with the argument, Orlando rushed forward and\ninflicted a fatal stab.\"\n\nThe history of Britain, written by the arch-. deacons of Monmouth and\nOxford, was wonderfully popular. According to them, Brutus conquered\nEngland and built the city of London. During his time, it rained pure\nblood for three days. At another time, a monster came from the sea, and,\nafter having devoured great multitudes of people, swallowed the king\nand disappeared. They tell us that King Arthur was not born like other\nmortals, but was the result of a magical contrivance; that he had\ngreat luck in killing giants; that he killed one in France that had\nthe cheerful habit of eating some thirty men a day. That this giant had\nclothes woven of the beards of the kings he had devoured. To cap the\nclimax, one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written\nthe only reliable history of his country.\n\nIn all the histories of those days there is hardly a single truth. Facts\nwere considered unworthy of preservation. Anything that really happened\nwas not of sufficient interest or importance to be recorded. The great\nreligious historian, Eusebius, ingenuously remarks that in his history\nhe carefully omitted whatever tended to discredit the church, and that\nhe piously magnified all that conduced to her glory.\n\nThe same glorious principle was scrupulously adhered to by all the\nhistorians of that time.\n\nThey wrote, and the people believed, that the tracks of Pharoah's\nchariots were still visible on the sands of the Red Sea, and that they\nhad been miraculously preserved from the winds and waves as perpetual\nwitnesses of the great miracle there performed.\n\nIt is safe to say that every truth in the histories of those times is\nthe result of accident or mistake.\n\nThey accounted for everything as the work of good and evil spirits. With\ncause and effect they had nothing to do. Facts were in no way related\nto each other. God, governed by infinite caprice, filled the world with\nmiracles and disconnected events. From the quiver of his hatred came the\narrows of famine, pestilence, and death.\n\nThe moment that the idea is abandoned that all is natural; that all\nphenomena are the necessary links in the endless chain of being, the\nconception of history becomes impossible. With the ghosts, the present\nis not the child of the past, nor the mother of the future. In the\ndomain of religion all is chance, accident, and caprice.\n\nDo not forget, I pray you, that our creeds were written by the\ncotemporaries of these historians.\n\nThe same idea was applied to law. It was believed by our intelligent\nancestors that all law derived its sacredness and its binding force from\nthe fact that it had been communicated to man by the ghosts. Of course\nit was not pretended that the ghosts told everybody the law; but they\ntold it to a few, and the few told it to the people, and the people, as\na rule, paid them exceedingly well for their trouble. It was thousands\nof ages before the people commenced making laws for themselves, and\nstrange as it may appear, most of these laws were vastly superior to the\nghost article. Through the web and woof of human legislation began to\nrun and shine and glitter the golden thread of justice.\n\nDuring these years of darkness it was believed that rather than see an\nact of injustice done; rather than see the innocent suffer; rather than\nsee the guilty triumph, some ghost would interfere. This belief, as a\nrule, gave great satisfaction to the victorious party, and as the other\nman was dead, no complaint was heard from him.\n\nThis doctrine was the sanctification of brute force and chance. They had\ntrials by battle, by fire, by water, and by lot. Persons were made\nto grasp hot iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established.\nOthers, with tied hands and feet, were cast into the sea, and if they\nsank, the verdict of guilty was unanimous,--if they did not sink, they\nwere in league with devils.\n\nSo in England, persons charged with crime could appeal to the corsned.\nThe corsned was a piece of the sacramental bread. If the defendant could\nswallow this piece he went acquit. Godwin, Earl of Kent, in the time of\nEdward the Confessor, appealed to the corsned. He failed to swallow it\nand was choked to death.\n\nThe ghosts and their followers always took delight in torture, in cruel\nand unusual punishments. For the infraction of most of their laws, death\nwas the penalty--death produced by stoning and by fire. Sometimes,\nwhen man committed only murder, he was allowed to flee to some city of\nrefuge. Murder was a crime against man. But for saying certain words, or\ndenying certain doctrines, or for picking up sticks on certain days, or\nfor worshiping the wrong ghost, or for failing to pray to the right one,\nor for laughing at a priest, or for saying that wine was not blood,\nor that bread was not flesh, or for failing to regard ram's horns as\nartillery, or for insisting that a dry bone was scarcely sufficient to\ntake the place of water works, or that a raven, as a rule, made a poor\nlandlord:--death, produced by all the ways that the ingenuity of hatred\ncould devise, was the penalty.\n\nLaw is a growth--it is a science. Right and wrong exist in the nature\nof things. Things are not right because they are commanded, nor wrong\nbecause they are prohibited. There are real crimes enough without\ncreating artificial ones. All progress in legislation has for centuries\nconsisted in repealing the laws of the ghosts.\n\nThe idea of right and wrong is born of man's capacity to enjoy and\nsuffer. If man could not suffer, if he could not inflict injury upon his\nfellow, if he could neither feel nor inflict pain, the idea of right\nand wrong never would have entered his brain. But for this, the word\nconscience never would have passed the lips of man.\n\nThere is one good--happiness. There is but one sin--selfishness. All\nlaw should be for the preservation of the one and the destruction of the\nother.\n\nUnder the regime of the ghosts, laws were not supposed to exist in the\nnature of things. They were supposed to be simply the irresponsible\ncommand of a ghost. These commands were not supposed to rest upon\nreason, they were the product of arbitrary will.\n\nThe penalties for the violation of these laws were as cruel as the laws\nwere senseless and absurd. Working on the Sabbath and murder were both\npunished with death. The tendency of such laws is to blot from the human\nheart the sense of justice.\n\nTo show you how perfectly every department of knowledge, or ignorance\nrather, was saturated with superstition, I will for a moment refer to\nthe science of language.\n\nIt was thought by our fathers, that Hebrew was the original language;\nthat it was taught to Adam in the Garden of Eden by the Almighty, and\nthat consequently all languages came from, and could be traced to, the\nHebrew. Every fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. According\nto the ghosts, the trouble at the tower of Babel accounted for the fact\nthat all people did not speak Hebrew. The Babel business settled all\nquestions in the science of language.\n\nAfter a time, so many facts were found to be inconsistent with the\nHebrew idea that it began to fall into disrepute, and other languages\nbegan to compete for the honor of being the original.\n\nAndre Kempe, in 1569, published a work on the language of Paradise,\nin which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish; that Adam\nanswered in Danish; and that the serpent--which appears to me quite\nprobable--spoke to Eve in French. Erro, in a work published at Madrid,\ntook the ground that Basque was the language spoken in the Garden of\nEden; but in 1580 Goropius published his celebrated work at Antwerp, in\nwhich he put the whole matter at rest by showing, beyond all doubt, that\nthe language spoken in Paradise was neither more nor less than plain\nHolland Dutch.\n\nThe real founder of the science of language was Liebnitz, a cotemporary\nof Sir Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all languages could\nbe traced to one language. He maintained that language was a natural\ngrowth. Experience teaches us that this must be so. Words are\ncontinually dying and continually being born. Words are naturally and\nnecessarily produced. Words are the garments of thought, the robes of\nideas. Some are as rude as the skins of wild beasts, and others glisten\nand glitter like silk and gold. They have been born of hatred and\nrevenge; of love and self-sacrifice; of hope and fear, of agony and joy.\nThese words are born of the terror and beauty of nature. The stars\nhave fashioned them. In them mingle the darkness and the dawn. From\neverything they have taken something. Words are the crystalizations\nof human history, of all that man has enjoyed and and suffered--his\nvictories and defeats--all that he has lost and won. Words are the\nshadows of all that has been--the mirrors of all that is.\n\nThe ghosts also enlightened our fathers in astronomy and geology.\nAccording to them the earth was made out of nothing, and a little more\nnothing having been taken than was used in the construction of this\nworld, the stars were made out of what was left over. Cosmos, in the\nsixth century, taught that the stars were impelled by angels, who either\ncarried them on their shoulders, rolled them in front of them, or drew\nthem after. He also taught that each angel that pushed a star took great\npains to observe what the other angels were doing, so that the relative\ndistances between the stars might always remain the same. He also gave\nhis idea as to the form of the world.\n\nHe stated that the world was a vast parallelogram; that on the outside\nwas a strip of land, like the frame of a common slate; that then there\nwas a strip of water, and in the middle a great piece of land; that\nAdam and Eve lived on the outer strip; that their descendants, with\nthe exception of the Noah family, were drowned by a flood on this outer\nstrip; that the ark finally rested on the middle piece of land where we\nnow are. He accounted for night and day by saying that on the outside\nstrip of land there was a high mountain, around which the sun and moon\nrevolved, and that when the sun was on the other side of the mountain,\nit was night; and when on this side, it was day.\n\nHe also declared that the earth was flat. This he proved by many\npassages from the bible. Among other reasons for believing the earth\nto be flat, he brought forward the following: We are told in the new\ntestament that Christ shall come again in glory and power, and all the\nworld shall see him. Now, if the world is round, how are the people\non the other side going to see Christ when he comes? That settled the\nquestion, and the church not only endorsed the book, but declared that\nwhoever believed less or more than stated by Cosmos, was a heretic.\n\nIn those blessed days, Ignorance was a king and Science an outcast.\n\nThey knew the moment this earth ceased to be the centre of the universe,\nand became a mere speck in the starry heaven of existence, that their\nreligion would become a childish fable of the past.\n\nIn the name and by the authority of the ghosts, men enslaved their\nfellow men; they trampled upon the rights of women and children. In the\nname and by the authority of ghosts, they bought and sold and destroyed\neach other; they filled heaven with tyrants and earth with slaves, the\npresent with despair and the future with horror. In the name and by the\nauthority of the ghosts, they imprisoned the human mind, polluted the\nconscience, hardened the heart, subverted justice, crowned robbery,\nsainted hypocrisy, and extinguished for a thousand years the torch of\nreason.\n\nI have endeavored, in some faint degree, to show you what has happened,\nand what always will happen when men are governed by superstition and\nfear; when they desert the sublime standard of reason; when they take\nthe words of others and do not investigate for themselves.\n\nEven the great men of those days were nearly as weak in this matter\nas the most ignorant. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the world,\nan astronomer second to none, although he plucked from the stars the\nsecrets of the universe, was an astrologer, and really believed that\nhe could predict the career of a man by finding what star was in the\nascendant at his birth. This great man breathed, so to speak, the\natmosphere of his time. He believed in the music of the spheres, and\nassigned alto, bass, tenor, and treble to certain stars.\n\nTycho Brahe, another astronomer, kept an idiot, whose disconnected and\nmeaningless words he carefully set down, and then put them together in\nsuch manner as to make prophecies, and then waited patiently to see them\nfulfilled. Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil, and had\ndiscussed points of theology with him. The human mind was in chains.\nEvery idea almost was a monster. Thought was deformed. Facts were looked\nupon as worthless. Only the wonderful was worth preserving. Things that\nactually happened were not considered worth recording;--real occurrences\nwere too common. Everybody expected the miraculous.\n\nThe ghosts were supposed to be busy; devils were thought to be the\nmost industrious things in the universe, and with these imps, every\noccurrence of an unusual character was in some way connected. There was\nno order, no serenity, no certainty, in anything. Everything depended\nupon ghosts and phantoms. Man was, for the most part, at the mercy of\nmalevolent spirits. He protected himself as best he could with holy\nwater and tapers and wafers and cathedrals. He made noises and rung\nbells to frighten the ghosts, and he made music to charm them. He used\nsmoke to choke them, and incense to please them. He wore beads and\ncrosses. He said prayers, and hired others to say them. He fasted when\nhe was hungry, and feasted when he was not. He believed everything that\nseemed unreasonable, just to appease the ghosts. He humbled himself. He\ncrawled in the dust. He shut the doors and windows, and excluded every\nray of light from the temple of the soul. He debauched and polluted\nhis own mind, and toiled night and day to repair the walls of his own\nprison. From the garden of his heart he plucked and trampled upon the\nholy flowers of pity.\n\nThe priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. Concerning\nthe wrath of God, they grew eloquent. They denounced man as totally\ndepraved. They made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. Nothing so\ndelighted them as painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. Over\nthe worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled\nthem with a kind of holy delight. According to them, the smoke and cries\nascending from hell were the perfume and music of heaven.\n\nAt the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have to show you the\nproductions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread\nignorance--the results of fear. I want to convince you that every form\nof slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison\nfangs into the bosoms of men.\n\nThe first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the\nslave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of\nhis own creation--of the ghosts and phantoms of the air.\n\nFor ages the human race was imprisoned.\n\nThrough the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against\nthese grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face,\nwooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.\n\nMen found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better\nthan what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy.\nThey found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be\ncured by frightening them away. They found that death was as natural as\nlife. They began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body,\nand found that all was natural and within the domain of law.\n\nThe conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon\nemployed. They found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were\nnot mere specks. They found that being born under a particular planet\nhad nothing to do with the fortunes of men.\n\nThe astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place.\n\nThey found that the earth had swept through the constellations for\nmillions of ages. They found that good and evil were produced by natural\ncauses, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad\nenough to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally\nas grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to\nbelieve a certain creed. They found that man, through intelligence,\ncould take advantage of the forces of nature--that he could make the\nwaves, the winds, the flames, and the lightnings of heaven do his\nbidding and minister to his wants. They found that the ghosts\nknew nothing of benefit to man; that they were utterly ignorant\nof geology--of astronomy--of geography;--that they knew nothing of\nhistory;--that they were poor doctors and worse surgeons;--that they\nknew nothing of law and less of justice; that they were without brains,\nand utterly destitute of hearts; that they knew nothing of the rights\nof men; that they were despisers of women, the haters of progress, the\nenemies of science, and the destroyers of liberty.\n\nThe condition of the world during the Dark Ages shows exactly the result\nof enslaving the bodies and souls of men. In those days there was no\nfreedom. Labor was despised, and a laborer was considered but little\nabove a beast. Ignorance, like a vast cowl, covered the brain of the\nworld, and superstition ran riot with the imagination of man. The air\nwas filled with angels, with demons and monsters. Credulity sat upon\nthe throne of the soul, and Reason was an exiled king. A man to be\ndistinguished must be a soldier or a monk. War and theology, that is\nto say, murder and hypocrisy, were the principal employments of man.\nIndustry was a slave, theft was commerce; murder was war, hypocrisy was\nreligion.\n\nEvery christian country maintained that it was no robbery to take the\nproperty of Mohammedans by force, and no murder to kill the owners. Lord\nBacon was the first man of note who maintained that a christian country\nwas bound to keep its plighted faith with an infidel nation. Reading and\nwriting were considered dangerous arts. Every layman who could read and\nwrite was suspected of being a heretic. All thought was discouraged.\nThey forged chains of superstition for the minds, and manacles of iron\nfor the bodies of men. The earth was ruled by the cowl and sword,--by\nthe mitre and scepter,--by the altar and throne,--by Fear and Force,--by\nIgnorance and Faith,--by ghouls and ghosts.\n\nIn the fifteenth century the following law was in force in England:\n\n\"That whosoever reads the scriptures in the mother tongue, shall forfeit\nland, cattle, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be\ncondemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most arrant\ntraitors to the land.\"\n\nDuring the first year this law was in force thirty-nine were hanged for\nits violation and their bodies burned.\n\nIn the sixteenth century men were burned because they failed to kneel to\na procession of monks.\n\nThe slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was\npunished with death.\n\nEven the reformers, so called, of those days, had no idea of\nintellectual liberty--no idea even of toleration. Luther, Knox, Calvin,\nbelieved in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. The\nmoment they were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire\nand sword.\n\nCastellio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul.\nHe was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he\nhad committed the crime of crimes.\n\nBodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a few words\nin favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was\noverwhelmingly against him. The people were ready, anxious, and willing,\nwith whip, and chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy\nthat he had a right to think.\n\nMontaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most\nuncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture\nin France. But what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of\nignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? It was the\ncry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.\n\nIn spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the\nfreedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of\nhuman beings--fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters--with hopes, loves,\nand aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar\nof an ignorant faith. They perished in every way by which death can\nbe produced. Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the\nbelievers in ghosts.\n\nFor my part I glory in the fact, that here in the new world,--in the\nUnited States,--liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man, and\nthat the Constitution of the United States was the first great decree\nentered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing Church and\nState,--the first injunction granted against the interference of the\nghosts. This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race\nin the direction of Progress.\n\nYou will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred\nyears. And I answer--the inventions and discoveries of the few;--the\nbrave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;--the acquisition of a\nfew facts.\n\nBesides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish\nitself. It is hard to make a lie stand always. A lie will not fit a\nfact. It will only fit another lie made for the purpose. The life of\na lie is simply a question of time. Nothing but truth is immortal. The\nnobles and kings quarreled;--the priests began to dispute;--the ideas of\ngovernment began to change.\n\nIn 1441 printing was discovered. At that time the past was a vast\ncemetery with hardly an epitaph. The ideas of men had mostly perished\nin the brain that produced them. The lips of the human race had been\nsealed. Printing gave pinions to thought. It preserved ideas. It made it\npossible for man to bequeath to the future the riches of his brain, the\nwealth of his soul. At first, it was used to flood the world with the\nmistakes of the ancients, but since that time it has been flooding the\nworld with light.\n\nWhen people read they begin to reason, and when they reason they\nprogress. This was another grand step in the direction of Progress.\n\nThe discovery of powder, that put the peasant almost upon a par with\nthe prince;--that put an end to the so-called age of chivalry;--that\nreleased a vast number of men from the armies;--that gave pluck and\nnerve a chance with brute strength.\n\nThe discovery of America, whose shores were trod by the restless feet\nof adventure;--that brought people holding every shade of superstition\ntogether;--that gave the world an opportunity to compare notes, and to\nlaugh at the follies of each other. Out of this strange mingling of\nall creeds, and superstitions, and facts, and theories, and countless\nopinions, came the Great Republic.\n\nEvery fact has pushed a superstition from the brain and a ghost from the\nclouds. Every mechanic art is an educator. Every loom, every reaper and\nmower, every steamboat, every locomotive, every engine, every press,\nevery telegraph, is a missionary of Science and an apostle of Progress.\nEvery mill, every furnace, every building with its wheels and levers,\nin which something is made for the convenience, for the use, and for the\ncomfort and elevation of man, is a church, and every school house is a\ntemple.\n\nEducation is the most radical thing in the world\n\nTo teach the alphabet is to inaugurate a revolution.\n\nTo build a school house is to construct a fort.\n\nEvery library is an arsenal filled with the weapons and ammunition of\nProgress, and every fact is a monitor with sides of iron and a turret of\nsteel.\n\nI thank the inventors, the discoverers, the thinkers. I thank Columbus\nand Magellan. I thank Galileo, and Copernicus, and Kepler, and Des\nCartes, and Newton, and La Place. I thank Locke, and Hume, and Bacon,\nand Shakespeare, and Kant, and Fichte, and Liebnitz, and Goethe. I thank\nFulton, and Watts, and Volta, and Galvani, and Franklin, and Morse, who\nmade lightning the messenger of man. I thank Humboldt, the Shakespeare\nof science. I thank Crompton and Arkwright, from whose brains leaped the\nlooms and spindles that clothe the world. I thank Luther for protesting\nagainst the abuses of the church, and I denounce him because he was\nthe enemy of liberty. I thank Calvin for writing a book in favor of\nreligious freedom, and I abhor him because he burned Servetus. I thank\nKnox for resisting episcopal persecution, and I hate him because he\npersecuted in his turn. I thank the Puritans for saying \"Resistance to\ntyrants is obedience to God,\" and yet I am compelled to say that they\nwere tyrants themselves. I thank Thomas Paine because he was a believer\nin liberty, and because he did as much to make my country free as any\nother human being. I thank Voltaire, that great man who, for half a\ncentury, was the intellectual emperor of Europe, and who, from his\nthrone at the foot of the Alps, pointed the finger of scorn at every\nhypocrite in Christendom. I thank Darwin, Haeckel and Buchner, Spencer,\nTyndall and Huxley, Draper, Leckey and Buckle. I thank the inventors,\nthe discoverers, the thinkers, the scientists, the explorers. I thank\nthe honest millions who have toiled.\n\nI thank the brave men with brave thoughts. They are the Atlases upon\nwhose broad and mighty shoulders rests the grand fabric of civilization.\nThey are the men who have broken, and are still breaking, the chains of\nSuperstition. They are the Titans who carried Olympus by assault, and\nwho will soon stand victors upon Sinai's crags.\n\nWe are beginning to learn that to exchange a mistake for the truth--a\nsuperstition for a fact--to ascertain the real--is to progress.\n\nHappiness is the only possible good, and all that tends to the happiness\nof man is right, and is of value. All that tends to develop the bodies\nand minds of men; all that gives us better houses, better clothes,\nbetter food, better pictures, grander music, better heads, better\nhearts; all that renders us more intellectual and more loving, nearer\njust; that makes us better husbands and wives, better children, better\ncitizens--all these things combined produce what I call Progress.\n\nMan advances only as he overcomes the obstructions of Nature, and this\ncan be done only by labor and by thought. Labor is the foundation of\nall. Without labor, and without great labor, progress is impossible. The\nprogress of the world depends upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows\nand through the rustling corn; upon those who sow and reap; upon those\nwhose faces are radiant with the glare of furnace fires; upon the\ndelvers in the mines, and the workers in shops; upon those who give to\nthe winter air the ringing music of the axe; upon those who battle with\nthe boisterous billows of the sea; upon the inventors and discoverers;\nupon the brave thinkers.\n\nFrom the surplus produced by labor, schools and universities are built\nand fostered. From this surplus the painter is paid for the productions\nof the pencil; the sculptor for chiseling shapeless rock into forms\ndivinely beautiful, and the poet for singing the hopes, the loves, the\nmemories, and the aspirations of the world. This surplus has given us\nthe books in which we converse with the dead and living kings of the\nhuman race. It has given us all there is of beauty, of elegance, and of\nrefined happiness.\n\nI am aware that there is a vast difference of opinion as to what\nprogress really is; that many denounce the ideas of to-day as\ndestructive of all happiness--of all good. I know that there are many\nworshipers of the past. They venerate the ancient because it is ancient.\nThey see no beauty in anything from which they do not blow the dust of\nages with the breath of praise. They say, no masters like the old; no\nreligion, no governments like the ancient; no orators, no poets, no\nstatesmen like those who have been dust for two thousand years. Others\nlove the modern simply because it is modern.\n\nWe should have gratitude enough to acknowledge the obligations we are\nunder to the great and heroic of antiquity, and independence enough not\nto believe what they said simply because they said it.\n\nWith the idea that labor is the basis of progress goes the truth that\nlabor must be free. The laborer must be a free man.\n\nThe free man, working for wife and child, gets his head and hands in\npartnership.\n\nTo do the greatest amount of work in the shortest space of time, is the\nproblem of free labor.\n\nSlavery does the least work in the longest space of time.\n\nFree labor will give us wealth. Free thought will give us truth.\n\nSlowly but surely man is freeing his imagination of these sexless\nphantoms, of these cruel ghosts. Slowly but surely he is rising above\nthe superstitions of the past. He is learning to rely upon himself.\nHe is beginning to find that labor is the only prayer that ought to be\nanswered, and that hoping, toiling, aspiring, suffering men and women\nare of more importance than all the ghosts that ever wandered through\nthe fenceless fields of space.\n\nThe believers in ghosts claim still, that they are the only wise and\nvirtuous people upon the earth; claim still, that there is a difference\nbetween them and unbelievers so vast, that they will be infinitely\nrewarded, and the others infinitely punished.\n\nI ask you to-night, do the theories and doctrines of the theologians\nsatisfy the heart or brain of the Nineteenth Century?\n\nHave the churches the confidence of mankind?\n\nDoes the merchant give credit to a man because he belongs to a church?\n\nDoes the banker loan money to a man because he is a Methodist or\nBaptist?\n\nWill a certificate of good standing in any church be taken as collateral\nsecurity for one dollar?\n\nWill you take the word of a church member, or his note, or his oath,\nsimply because he is a church member?\n\nAre the clergy, as a class, better, kinder and more generous to their\nfamilies--to their fellow-men--than doctors, lawyers, merchants and\nfarmers?\n\nDoes a belief in ghosts and unreasonable things necessarily make people\nhonest?\n\nWhen a man loses confidence in Moses, must the people lose confidence in\nhim?\n\nDoes not the credit system in morals breed extravagance in sin?\n\nWhy send missionaries to other lands while every penitentiary in ours is\nfilled with criminals?--\n\nIs it philosophical to say that they who do right carry a cross?\n\nIs it a source of joy to think that perdition is the destination of\nnearly all of the children of men?\n\nIs it worth while to quarrel about original sin--when there is so much\ncopy?\n\nDoes it pay to dispute about baptism, and the trinity, and\npredestination, and apostolic succession and the infallibility of\nchurches, of popes and of books? Does all this do any good?\n\nAre the theologians welcomers of new truths? Are they noted for their\ncandor? Do they treat an opponent with common fairness? Are they\ninvestigators? Do they pull forward, or do they hold back?\n\nIs science indebted to the church for a solitary fact?\n\nWhat church is an asylum for a persecuted truth?\n\nWhat great reform has been inaugurated by the church?\n\nDid the church abolish slavery?\n\nHas the church raised its voice against war?\n\nI used to think that there was in religion no real restraining force.\nUpon this point my mind has changed. Religion will prevent man from\ncommitting artificial crimes and offenses.\n\nA man committed murder. The evidence was so conclusive that he confessed\nhis guilt.\n\nHe was asked why he killed his fellow-man.\n\nHe replied: \"For money.\"\n\n\"Did you get any?\"\n\n\"Yes.\"\n\n\"How much?\"\n\n\"Fifteen cents.\"\n\n\"What did you do with this money?\" \"Spent it!\" \"What for?\" \"Liquor.\"\n\n\"What else did you find upon the dead man?\" \"He had his dinner in a\nbucket--some meat and bread.\"\n\n\"What did you do with that?\"\n\n\"I ate the bread.\"\n\n\"What did you do with the meat?\"\n\n\"I threw it away.\"\n\n\"Why?\"\n\n\"It was Friday.\"\n\nJust to the extent that man has freed himself from the dominion of\nghosts he has advanced. Just to the extent that he has freed himself\nfrom the tyrants of his own creation he has progressed. Just to the\nextent that he has investigated for himself he has lost confidence in\nsuperstition.\n\nWith knowledge obedience becomes intelligent acquiescence--it is no\nlonger degrading. Acquiescence in the understood--in the known--is the\nact of a sovereign, not of a slave. It ennobles, it does not degrade.\n\nMan has found that he must give liberty to others in order to have it\nhimself. He has found that a master is also a slave;--that a tyrant\nis himself a serf. He has found that governments should be founded and\nadministered by man and for man; that the rights of all are equal; that\nthe powers that be are not ordained by God; that woman is at least the\nequal of man; that men existed before books; that religion is one of the\nphases of thought through which the world is passing; that all creeds\nwere made by man; that everything is natural; that a miracle is\nan impossibility; that we know nothing of origin and destiny; that\nconcerning the unknown we are all equally ignorant; that the pew has\nthe right to contradict what the pulpit asserts; that man is responsible\nonly to himself and those he injures, and that all have a right to\nthink.\n\nTrue religion must be free. Without perfect liberty of the mind there\ncan be no true religion. Without liberty the brain is a dungeon--the\nmind a convict. The slave may bow and cringe and crawl, but he cannot\nadore--he cannot love.\n\nTrue religion is the perfume of a free and grateful heart. True religion\nis a subordination of the passions to the perceptions of the intellect.\nTrue religion is not a theory--it is a practice. It is not a creed--it\nis a life.\n\nA theory that is afraid of investigation is undeserving a place in the\nhuman mind.\n\nI do not pretend to tell what all the truth is. I do not pretend to have\nfathomed the abyss, nor to have floated on outstretched wings level with\nthe dim heights of thought. I simply plead for freedom. I denounce the\ncruelties and horrors of slavery. I ask for light and air for the souls\nof men. I say, take off those chains--break those manacles--free those\nlimbs--release that brain! I plead for the right to think--to reason--to\ninvestigate. I ask that the future may be enriched with the honest\nthoughts of men. I implore every human being to be a soldier in the army\nof progress.\n\nI will not invade the rights of others. You have no right to erect your\ntoll-gate upon the highways of thought. You have no right to leap from\nthe hedges of superstition and strike down the pioneers of the human\nrace. You have no right to sacrifice the liberties of man upon the\naltars of ghosts. Believe what you may; preach what you desire; have all\nthe forms and ceremonies you please; exercise your liberty in your own\nway but extend to all others the same right.\n\nI will not attack your doctrines nor your creeds if they accord liberty\nto me. If they hold thought to be dangerous--if they aver that doubt is\na crime, then I attack them one and all, because they enslave the minds\nof men.\n\nI attack the monsters, the phantoms of imagination that have ruled the\nworld. I attack slavery. I ask for room--room for the human mind.\n\nWhy should we sacrifice a real world that we have, for one we know not\nof? Why should we enslave ourselves? Why should we forge fetters for\nour own hands? Why should we be the slaves of phantoms. The darkness of\nbarbarism was the womb of these shadows. In the light of science they\ncannot cloud the sky forever. They have reddened the hands of man with\ninnocent blood. They made the cradle a curse, and the grave a place of\ntorment.\n\nThey blinded the eyes and stopped the ears of the human race. They\nsubverted all ideas of justice by promising infinite rewards for finite\nvirtues, and threatening infinite punishment for finite offenses.\n\nThey filled the future with heavens and with hells, with the shining\npeaks of selfish joy and the lurid abysses of flame. For ages they kept\nthe world in ignorance and awe, in want and misery, in fear and chains.\n\nI plead for light, for air, for opportunity. I plead for individual\nindependence. I plead for the rights of labor and of thought. I plead\nfor a chainless future. Let the ghosts go--justice remains. Let them\ndisappear--men and women and children are left. Let the monsters fade\naway--the world is here with its hills and seas and plains, with its\nseasons of smiles and frowns, its spring of leaf and bud, its summer of\nshade and flower and murmuring stream; its autumn with the laden boughs,\nwhen the withered banners of the corn are still, and gathered fields are\ngrowing strangely wan; while death, poetic death, with hands that color\nwhat they touch, weaves in the Autumn wood her tapestries of gold and\nbrown.\n\nThe world remains with its winters and homes and firesides, where grow\nand bloom the virtues of our race. All these are left; and music, with\nits sad and thrilling voice, and all there is of art and song and hope\nand love and aspiration high. All these remain. Let the ghosts go--we\nwill worship them no more.\n\nMan is greater than these phantoms. Humanity is grander than all the\ncreeds, than all the books. Humanity is the great sea, and these creeds,\nand books, and religions, are but the waves of a day. Humanity is the\nsky, and these religions and dogmas and theories are but the mists and\nclouds changing continually, destined finally to melt away.\n\nThat which is founded upon slavery, and fear, and ignorance, cannot\nendure. In the religion of the future there will be men and women and\nchildren, all the aspirations of the soul, and all the tender humanities\nof the heart.\n\nLet the ghosts go. We will worship them no more. Let them cover their\neyeless sockets with their fleshless hands and fade forever from the\nimaginations of men.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD\n\n\n  Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to Matter.\n\n\nTHERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of intelligence.\nThe history of man is simply the history of slavery, of injustice and\nbrutality, together with the means by which he has, through the dead and\ndesolate years, slowly and painfully advanced. He has been the sport\nand prey of priest and king, the food of superstition and cruel might.\nCrowned force has governed ignorance through fear. Hypocrisy and\ntyranny--two vultures--have fed upon the liberties of man. From all\nthese there has been, and is, but one means of escape--intellectual\ndevelopment. Upon the back of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain\nhave been the fetters of superstition. Nothing has been left undone\nby the enemies of freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and\noutrage has been practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man.\nIn this great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue\nhas been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have all\nbeen crimes.\n\nEvery science has been an outcast.\n\nAll the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the forward march of\nthe human race. The king said that mankind must not work for themselves.\nThe priest said that mankind must not think for themselves. One forged\nchains for the hands, the other for the soul. Under this infamous\n_regime_ the eagle of the human intellect was for ages a slimy serpent\nof hypocrisy.\n\nThe human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars came a\nfew struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science pressed its\npale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.\nBar after bar was broken away. A few grand men escaped and devoted their\nlives to the liberation of their fellows.\n\nOnly a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human mind. Men\nbegan to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them work for him?\nThe man who asked this question was called a traitor. Others asked by\nwhat right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? Such men were called\ninfidels. The priest said, and the king said, where is this spirit\nof investigation to stop? They said then and they say now, that it is\ndangerous for man to be free. I deny it. Out on the intellectual sea\nthere is room enough for every sail. In the intellectual air there is\nspace enough for every wing.\n\nThe man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a traitor to\nhimself and to his fellow-men.\n\n\"Every man should stand under the blue and stars, under the infinite\nflag of nature, the peer of every other man.\"\n\nStanding in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same right to\nthink, and all are equally interested in the great questions of origin\nand destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is liberty thought and\nexpression. That is all. I do not pretend to tell what is absolutely\ntrue, but what I think is true. I do not pretend to tell all the truth.\nI do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of thought, or\nthat I have descended to the very depths of things. I simply claim that\nwhat ideas I have, I have a right to express; and that any man who\ndenies that right to me is an intellectual thief and robber. That is\nall.\n\nTake those chains from the human soul. Break those fetters. If I have no\nright to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such right, have three\nor four men, or any number, who may get together, and sign a creed, and\nbuild a house, and put a steeple upon it, and a bell in it--have they\nthe right to think? The good men, the good women are tired of the whip\nand lash in the realm of thought. They remember the chain and fagot\nwith a shudder. They are free, and they give liberty to others. Whoever\nclaims any right that he is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is\ndishonest and infamous.\n\nIn the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they could make\npeople believe to suit them. Our ancestors, in the ages that are gone,\nreally believed that by force you could convince a man. You cannot\nchange the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor by social ostracism.\nBut I will tell you what you can do by these, and what you have done.\nYou can make hypocrites by the million. You can make a man say that\nhe has changed his mind; but he remains of the same opinion still. Put\nfetters all over him; crush his feet in iron boots; stretch him to the\nlast gasp upon the holy rack; burn him, if you please, but his ashes\nwill be of the same opinion still.\n\nOur fathers in the good old times--and the best thing I can say about\nthem is, that they have passed away--had an idea that they could force\nmen to think their way. That idea is still prevalent in many parts, even\nof this country. Even in our day some extremely religious people say,\n\"We will not trade with that man; we will not vote for him; we will not\nhire him if he is a lawyer; we will die before we will take his medicine\nif he is a doctor; we will not invite him to dinner; we will socially\nostracise him; he must come to our church; he must believe our\ndoctrines; he must worship our god or we will not in any way contribute\nto his support.\"\n\nIn the old times of which I have spoken, they desired to make all men\nthink exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the world cannot\nmake two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you going to make\nhundreds of millions of people, differing in brain and disposition, in\neducation and aspiration, in conditions and surroundings, each clad in\na living robe of passionate flesh--how are you going to make them think\nand feel alike? If there is an infinite god, one who made us, and wishes\nus to think alike, why did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a\nmagnificent intellectual development to another? Why is it that we\nhave all degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was\nintended that all should think and feel alike?\n\nI used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind. But I never\nappreciated it. I read it, but it did not burn itself into my soul, I\ndid not really appreciate the infamies that have been committed in the\nname of religion, until I saw the iron arguments that christians used.\nI saw the Thumbscrew--two little pieces of iron, armed on the inner\nsurfaces with protuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end\na screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of\nbaptism, or maybe said, \"I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a\nman to keep him from drowning,\" then they put his thumb between these\npieces of iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began\nto screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, \"I\nwill recant.\" Probably I should have done the same. Probably I would\nhave said: \"Stop, I will admit anything that you wish; I will admit that\nthere is one god or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves;\nbut stop.\"\n\nBut there was now and then a man who would not swerve the breadth of a\nhair. There was now and then some sublime heart, willing to die for\nan intellectual conviction. Had it not been for such men, we would be\nsavages to-night. Had it not been for a few brave, heroic souls in every\nage, we would have been cannibals, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed\nupon our flesh, dangling around some dried snake fetich.\n\nLet us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so proudly,\nin spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he believed to be\nthe truth.\n\nHeroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who would not\nrecant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews down to the last\npang, and then threw their victim into some dungeon, where, in the\nthrobbing silence and darkness, he might suffer the agonies of the\nfabled damned. This was done in the name of love--in the name of\nmercy--in the name of the compassionate Christ.\n\nI saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a circle\nof iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp as needles.\nThis argument was fastened about the throat of the sufferer. Then he\ncould not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without the neck being punctured\nby these points. In a little while the throat would begin to swell, and\nsuffocation would end the agonies of that man. This man, it may be, had\ncommitted the crime of saying, with tears upon his cheeks, \"I do not\nbelieve that God, the father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition\nany of the children of men.\"\n\nI saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter. Think of a\npair of shears with handles, not only where they now are, but at the\npoints as well, and just above the pivot that unites the blades, a\ncircle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be placed; in the\nlower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the centre, the head of\nthe victim would be forced. In this condition, he would be thrown prone\nupon the earth, and the strain upon the muscles produced such agony that\ninsanity would in pity end his pain.\n\nThis was done by gentlemen who said: \"Whosoever smiteth thee upon one\ncheek turn to him the other also.\"\n\nI saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with a windlass\nat each end, with levers, and ratchets to prevent slipping; over each\nwindlass went chains; some were fastened to the ankles of the sufferer;\nothers to his wrists. And then priests, clergymen, divines, saints,\nbegan turning these windlasses, and kept turning, until the ankles, the\nknees, the hips, the shoulders, the elbows, the wrists of the victim\nwere all dislocated, and the sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony.\nAnd they had standing by a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To\nsave his life? Yes. In mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once\nagain.\n\nThis was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the name of law\nand order; in the name of mercy; in the name of religion; in the name of\nthe most merciful Christ.\n\nSometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things, it seems\nto me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It seems sometimes,\nas though I had stood upon the shore of exile and gazed with tearful\neyes toward home and native land; as though my nails had been torn from\nmy hands, and into the bleeding quick needles had been thrust; as though\nmy feet had been crushed in iron boots; as though I had been chained in\nthe cell of the Inquisition and listened with dying ears for the coming\nfootsteps of release; as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had\nseen the glittering axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack\nand had seen, bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests;\nas though I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children,\ntaken to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled\nabout me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched\nmy eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been scattered to the\nfour winds, by all the countless hands of hate. And when I so feel, I\nswear that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and to\naugment the liberties of man, woman, and child.\n\nIt is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of intellectual\ndevelopment. If there is a man in the world who is not willing to give\nto every human being every right he claims for himself, he is just so\nmuch nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a question of honesty. The man\nwho is not willing to give to every other the same intellectual rights\nhe claims for himself, is dishonest, selfish, and brutal.\n\nIt is a question of intellectual development. Whoever holds another man\nresponsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and distorted brain.\nIt is a question of intellectual development.\n\nA little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man has made.\nI saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-out in which\nfloated a naked savage--one of our ancestors--a naked savage, with\nteeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of brains in the back of\nhis head--I saw models of all the water craft of the world, from that\ndug-out up to a man-of-war, that carries a hundred guns and miles of\ncanvas--from that dug-out to the steamship that turns its brave prow\nfrom the port of New York, with a compass like a conscience, crossing\nthree thousand miles of billows without missing a throb or beat of its\nmighty iron heart.\n\nI saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a club, such\nas was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from his den in\nthe ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that club to the\nboomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the blunderbuss, to the\nflint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun, up to a cannon cast by\nKrupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through\neighteen inches of solid steel.\n\nI saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of our brave\nancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight for his country;\nthe skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, which this same\nsavage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts of mail, that\nwere worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed at the edge of the sword and\ndefied the point of the spear; up to a monitor clad in complete steel.\n\nI saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the\ntom-tom--that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide drawn\nacross it--from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have to-day, that\nmake the common air blossom with melody.\n\nI saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the great\nworks which now adorn the galleries of the world. I saw also their\nsculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen arms, several\nnoses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little, contemptible,\nbrainless head, up to the figures of to-day--to the marbles that genius\nhas clad in such a personality that it seems almost impudent to touch\nthem without an introduction.\n\nI saw their books--books written upon skins of wild beasts--upon\nshoulder-blades of sheep--books written upon leaves, upon bark, up to\nthe splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our day. When I\nspeak of libraries, I think of the remark of Plato: \"A house that has a\nlibrary in it has a soul.\"\n\nI saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick that was\nattached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural\nimplements of this generation, that make it possible for a man to\ncultivate the soil without being an ignoramus.\n\nWhile looking upon these things I was forced to say that man advanced\nonly as he mingled his thought with his labor,--only as he got into\npartnership with the forces of nature,--only as he learned to take\nadvantage of his surroundings--only as he freed himself from the bondage\nof fear,--only as he depended upon himself--only as he lost confidence\nin the gods.\n\nI saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest skull\nthat has been found, the Neanderthal skull--skulls from Central Africa,\nskulls from the Bushmen of Australia--skulls from the farthest isles of\nthe Pacific sea--up to the best skulls of the last generation;--and I\nnoticed that there was the same difference between those skulls that\nthere was between the _products_ of those skulls, and I said to myself,\n\"After all, it is a simple question of intellectual development.\" There\nwas the same difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest\nskulls, that there was between the dugout and the man-of-war and the\nsteamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow daub\nand the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by Verdi.\n\nThe first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which crawled the\nbase and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was a temple in which\ndwelt joy, liberty, and love.\n\nIt is all a question of brain, of intellectual development.\n\nIf we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have\nbetter heads upon the average, and more brains in them.\n\nNow, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no difference to you what\nI believe, nor what I wish to prove. I simply ask you to be honest.\nDivest your minds, for a moment at least, of all religious prejudice.\nAct, for a few moments, as though you were men and women.\n\nSuppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was one,\nat the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and charmed his ears\nwith the music of the tom-tom, had said: \"That dug-out is the best boat\nthat ever can be built by man; the pattern of that came from on high,\nfrom the great god of storm and flood, and any man who says that he can\nimprove it by putting a mast in it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel,\nand shall be burned at the stake;\" what, in your judgment--honor\nbright--would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the\nglobe?\n\nSuppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there was\none--and I presume there was a priest, because it was a very ignorant\nage--suppose this king and priest had said: \"That tom-tom is the most\nbeautiful instrument of music of which any man can conceive; that is the\nkind of music they have in heaven; an angel sitting upon the edge of\na fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun, playing upon that tom-tom,\nbecame so enraptured, so entranced with her own music, that in a kind of\necstasy she dropped it--that is how we obtained it; and any man who\nsays that it can be improved by putting a back and front to it, and\nfour strings, and a bridge, and getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a\nblaspheming wretch, and shall die the death,\"--I ask you, what effect\nwould that have had upon music? If that course had been pursued, would\nthe human ears, in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the\ndivine symphonies of Beethoven? Suppose the king, if there was one, and\nthe priest, had said: \"That crooked stick is the best plow that can be\ninvented: the pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a\nholy dream, and that twisted straw is the _ne plus ultra_ of all twisted\nthings, and any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow,\nis an atheist;\" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon\nthe science of agriculture?\n\nBut the people said, and the king and priest said: \"We want better\nweapons with which to kill our fellow christians; we want better plows,\nbetter music, better paintings, and whoever will give us better weapons,\nand better music, better houses to live in, better clothes, we will robe\nhim in wealth, and crown him with honor.\" Every incentive was held out\nto every human being to improve these things. That is the reason the\nclub has been changed to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub\nto a painting; that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken\nstone finally became a glorified statue.\n\nYou must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-out, the\ngentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-tom, and\ncultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion of his own.\nThat gentlemen in the dugout was orthodox. He was never troubled with\ndoubts. He lived and died settled in his mind. He believed in hell; and\nhe thought he would be far happier in heaven, if he could just lean over\nand see certain people who expressed doubts as to the truth of his\ncreed, gently but everlastingly broiled and burned.\n\nIt is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a great many\nintellectual descendants. It is also an unhappy fact in nature, that the\nignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. This fellow in the\ndug-out believed in a personal devil. His devil had a cloven hoof, a\nlong tail, armed with a fiery dart; and his devil breathed brimstone.\nThis devil was at least the equal of God; not quite so stout but\na little shrewder. And do you know there has not been a patentable\nimprovement made upon that devil for six thousand years.\n\nThis gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was a tyrant; that he\nwould eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with his highest\nand grandest ideal. He believed that the earth was flat. He believed in\na literal, burning, seething hell of fire and sulphur. He had also his\nidea of politics; and his doctrine was, might makes right. And it will\ntake thousands of years before the world will reverse this doctrine, and\nbelievingly say, \"Right makes might.\"\n\nAll I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that gentleman's\ntheology as upon his musical instrument; the same right to improve upon\nhis politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I ask for the human\nsoul the same liberty in every direction. That is the only crime I have\ncommitted. I say, let us think. Let each one express his thought. Let us\nbecome investigators, not followers, not cringers and crawlers. If there\nis in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with the\nworship of cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity,\nhonest atheism, will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no\nmatter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.\n\nThis is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right you claim\nfor yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of nature. Receive\nnew thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.\n\nThe religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at the wharf\nof orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the sails of old\nopinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He loves to see the\njoints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and it is a kind of bliss\nfor him to repeat again and again: \"Do not disturb my opinions. Do not\nunsettle my mind; I have it all made up, and I want no infidelity. Let\nme go backward rather than forward.\"\n\nAs far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I wish to\ntake my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had rather go down\nin the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot in any orthodox\nharbor whatever.\n\nAfter all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox people in\nthis country two hundred years ago would have been burned for the crime\nof heresy. The ministers who denounce me for expressing my thought would\nhave been in the Inquisition themselves. Where once burned and blazed\nthe bivouac fires of the army of progress, now glow the altars of the\nchurch. The religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground\noccupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The church\nhas advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. It has followed the army\nof progress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep within protesting\nand denouncing distance. If the church had not made great progress I\ncould not express my thoughts.\n\nMan, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with which he\nhas mingled his thought with his labor. The sailor, without control\nof the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious\ncurrents and pulses of the sea, is superstitious. So also is the\nagriculturist, whose prosperity depends upon something he cannot\ncontrol. But the mechanic, when a wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of\ndropping on his knees and asking the assistance of some divine power.\nHe knows there is a reason. He knows that something is too large or too\nsmall; that there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to\nwork and he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel\nwill turn. Now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it\nwere, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements,--of the\nheat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning,--just to the extent that\nhe has gotten control of his own destiny, just to the extent that he has\ntriumphed over the obstacles of nature, he has advanced physically and\nintellectually. As man develops, he places a greater value upon his own\nrights. Liberty becomes a grander and diviner thing. As he values his\nown rights, he begins to value the rights of others. And when all men\ngive to all others all the rights they claim for themselves, this world\nwill be civilized.\n\nA few years ago the people were afraid to question the king, afraid to\nquestion the priest, afraid to investigate a creed, afraid to deny a\nbook, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to reason, afraid to think.\nBefore wealth they bowed to the very earth, and in the presence of\ntitles they became abject. All this is slowly but surely changing. We\nno longer bow to men simply because they are rich. Our fathers worshiped\nthe golden calf. The worst you can say of an American now is, he\nworships the gold of the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see this\ndistinction. It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be\nking or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the\nemperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet of\ngold about his head. He wanted some evidence that he had something of\nvalue within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius Caesar, that he\nmight become a member of the French Academy. The emperors, the kings,\nthe popes, no longer tower above their fellows. Compare King William\nwith the philosopher Haeckel. The king is one of the anointed by the\nmost high, as they claim--one upon whose head has been poured the divine\npetroleum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an\nintellectual colossus above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot\nwith Queen Victoria. The queen is clothed in garments given her by blind\nfortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of glory\nwoven in the loom of her own genius.\n\nThe world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius, to heart.\n\nWe have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime and heroic\nself-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we should endeavor\nto hand the torch to the next generation, having added a little to the\nintensity and glory of the flame.\n\nWhen I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think of how\nlong our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and crawled at the\nfoot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of how they abased\nthemselves, of how abjectly they stood in the presence of superstition\nrobed and crowned, I am amazed.\n\nThis world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years. It was not\nuntil the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to\nthat time her judges, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice,\nher priests, occupying her pulpits, in the name of universal love, owned\nstock in the slave ships, and luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and\nmurder. It was not until the same year that the United States of\nAmerica abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but\ncarefully preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th\nday of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in\nher colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that\nAbraham Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our\nflag pure as the sky in which it floats.\n\nAbraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the grandest\nman ever President of the United States. Upon his monument these words\nshould be written: \"Here sleeps the only man in the history of the\nworld, who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused\nit, except upon the side of mercy.\"\n\nThink how long we clung to the institution of human slavery, how long\nlashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor performed.\nThink of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for\na hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whipping post.\n\nWith every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of tyranny,\nevery form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.\n\nWhat do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the right to do\nanything which does not interfere with the happiness of another. By\nintellectual liberty I mean the right to think right and the right to\nthink wrong. Thought is the means by which we endeavor to arrive at\ntruth. If we know the truth already, we need not think. All that can\nbe required is honesty of purpose. You ask my opinion about anything;\nI examine it honestly, and when my mind is made up, what should I tell\nyou? Should I tell you my real thought? What should I do? There is a\nbook put in my hands. I am told this is the Koran; it was written by\ninspiration. I read it, and when I get through, suppose that I think in\nmy heart and in my brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask\nme, what do you think? Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have\nno chance to get any office unless I am on the side of the Koran, what\nshould I say? Should I make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor\nI do not believe it? What would you think then of my fellow-citizens if\nthey said: \"That man is dangerous, he is dishonest.\"\n\nSuppose I read the book called the bible, and when I get through I make\nup my mind that it was written by men. A minister asks me, \"Did you read\nthe bible?\" I answer that I did. \"Do you think it divinely inspired?\"\nWhat should I reply? Should I say to myself, \"If I deny the inspiration\nof the scriptures, the people will never clothe me with power.\" What\nought I to answer? Ought I not to say like a man: \"I have read it; I do\nnot believe it.\" Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or\nshould I turn hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself\nforever after for being a cringing coward. For my part I would rather\na man would tell me what he honestly thinks. I would rather he\nwould preserve his manhood. I had a thousand times rather be a manly\nunbeliever than an unmanly believer. And if there is a judgment day,\na time when all will stand before some supreme being, I believe I will\nstand higher, and stand a better chance of getting my case decided in my\nfavor, than any man sneaking through life pretending to believe what he\ndoes not.\n\nI have made up my mind to say my say. I\n\nI shall do it kindly, distinctly; but I am going to do it. I know there\nare thousands of men who substantially agree with me, but who are not\nin a condition to express their thoughts. They are poor; they are in\nbusiness; and they know that should they tell their honest thought,\npersons will refuse to patronize them--to trade with them; they wish\nto get bread for their little children; they wish to take care of their\nwives; they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. Every such\nperson is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which he\nresides: And yet I do not blame these people for not expressing their\nthought. I say to them: \"Keep your ideas to yourselves; feed and clothe\nthe ones you love; I will do your talking for you. The church can not\ntouch, can not crush, can not starve, cannot stop or stay me; I will\nexpress your thoughts.\"\n\nAs an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the church has\ntaught that man is totally depraved. Of the truth of that doctrine, the\nchurch has furnished the only evidence there is. The truth is, we are\nboth good and bad. The worst are capable of some good deeds, and the\nbest are capable of bad. The lowest can rise, and the highest may fall.\nThat mankind can be divided into two great classes, sinners and saints,\nis an utter falsehood. In times of great disaster, called it may be, by\nthe despairing voices of women, men, denounced by the church as totally\ndepraved, rush to death as to a festival. By such men, deeds are done\nso filled with self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay\nto them the tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. Above all\ncreeds,-above all religions, after all, is that divine thing,--Humanity;\nand now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the rocks\nand breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of flame writhe\nand hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul does a deed\nthat glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the dogmas of\nsuperstition. All these frightful doctrines have been used to degrade\nand to enslave mankind.\n\nAway, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and laws and\nreligions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down with the idea\nthat thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous doctrine that man can\nhave property in man. Let us resent with indignation every effort to put\na chain upon our minds. If there is no God, certainly we should not bow\nand cringe and crawl. If there is a God, there should be no slaves.\n\n\n\n\n\nLIBERTY OF WOMAN.\n\nWomen have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took\nmillions of ages for woman to come from the condition of abject slavery\nup to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, that I regard\nmarriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside\nthere is no human advancement; without the family relation there is no\nlife worth living. Every good government is made up of good families.\nThe unit of good government is the family, and anything that tends to\ndestroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in\nmarriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired\nmen and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.\n\nThe grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so live, and\nso improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of the love of\nsome splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make\nherself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That\nis my idea. There is no success in life without love and marriage. You\nhad better be the emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the\nempress of yours, than to be king of the world. The man who has really\nwon the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies\nin the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.\n\nI say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject\nslavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you\nwear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs of your mother's\nbondage. The chains around your necks, and the bracelets clasped upon\nyour white arms by the thrilled hand of love, have been changed by the\nwand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold.\n\nBut nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment in this\nworld by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is! And if it\nis true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a world full of\ntrouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.\n\nI read in a book--and I will say now that I cannot give the exact\nlanguage, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can give the\nsubstance--I read in a book that the Supreme Being concluded to make a\nworld and one man; that he took some nothing and made a world and one\nman, and put this man in a garden. In a little while he noticed that\nthe man got lonesome; that he wandered around as if he was waiting for\na train. There was nothing to interest him; no news; no papers; no\npolitics; no policy; and, as the devil had not yet made his appearance,\nthere was no chance for reconciliation; not even for civil service\nreform. Well, he wandered about the garden in this condition, until\nfinally the Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.\n\nHaving used up all the nothing he originally took in making the world\nand one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a woman with. So\nhe caused a sleep to fall on this man--now understand me, I do not say\nthis story is true. After the sleep fell upon this man, the Supreme\nBeing took a rib, or as the French would call it, a cutlet, out of this\nman, and from that he made a woman. And considering the amount of raw\nmaterial used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever performed.\nWell, after he got the woman done, she was brought to the man; not to\nsee how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her, and\nthey started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they\nmight do and of one thing they could not do--and of course they did it.\nI would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it. There wouldn't\nhave been an apple on that tree half an hour from date, and the limbs\nwould have been full of clubs. And then they were turned out of the park\nand extra policemen were put on to keep them from getting back.\n\nDevilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the whooping-cough,\nand the scarlet fever started in their race for man. They began to have\nthe toothache, roses began to have thorns, snakes began to have poisoned\nteeth, and people began to divide about religion and politics, and the\nworld has been full of trouble from that day to this.\n\nNearly all of the religions of this world account for the existence of\nevil by such a story as that!\n\nI read in another book what appeared to be an account of the same\ntransaction. It was written about four thousand years before the other.\nAll commentators agree that the one that was written last was the\noriginal, and that the one that was written first was copied from the\none that was written last. But I would advise you all not to allow your\ncreed to be disturbed by a little matter of four or five thousand years.\nIn this other story, Brahma made up his mind to make the world and a man\nand woman. He made the world, and he made the man and then the woman,\nand put them on the island of Ceylon. According to the account it was\nthe most beautiful island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such\nsongs, such flowers and such verdure! And the branches of the trees\nwere so arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a\nthousand AEolian harps.\n\nBrahma, when he put them there, said: \"Let them have a period of\ncourtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever\nprecede marriage.\" When I read that, it was so much more beautiful and\nlofty than the other, that I said to myself, \"If either one of these\nstories ever turns out to be true, I hope it will be this one.\"\n\nThen they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing, and the\nstars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in love. Imagine\nthat courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prying and\ngossiping neighbors; nobody to say, \"Young man, how do you expect to\nsupport her?\" Nothing of that kind. They were married by the Supreme\nBrahma, and he said to them: \"Remain here; you must never leave this\nisland.\" Well, after a little while the man--and his name was Adami, and\nthe woman's name was Heva--said to Heva: \"I believe I'll look about a\nlittle.\" He went to the northern extremity of the island where there was\na little narrow neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the\ndevil, who is always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when\nhe looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and\ndales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in bows of\nglory did he see there, that he went back and told Heva: \"The country\nover there is a thousand times better than this; let us migrate.\" She,\nlike every other woman that ever lived, said: \"Let well enough alone;\nwe have all we want; let us stay here.\" But he said \"No, let us go;\"\nso she followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land,\nhe took her on his back like a gentleman, and carried her over. But the\nmoment they got over they heard a crash, and looking back, discovered\nthat this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had\ndisappeared, and there were naught but rocks and sand; and then the\nSupreme Brahma cursed them both to the lowest hell.\n\nThen it was that the man spoke,--and I have liked him ever since for\nit--\"Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault, it was mine.\"\n\nThat's the kind of man to start a world with.\n\nThe Supreme Brahma said: \"I will save her, but not thee.\" And then she\nspoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which there was\nlove enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection, and said:\n\"If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live\nwithout him; I love him.\" Then the Supreme Brahma said--and I have liked\nhim ever since I read it--\"I will spare you both and watch over you and\nyour children forever.\"\n\nHonor bright, is not that the better and grander story?\n\nAnd from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of these\nmiserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert. We send\nmissionaries over yonder to convert heathen there, and we send soldiers\nout on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can convert the heathen,\nwhy not convert those nearest home? Why not convert those we can get at?\nWhy not convert those who have the immense advantage of the example of\nthe average pioneer? But to show you the men we are trying to convert:\nIn this book it says: \"Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage,\nwoman is love. When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman\nloves the one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that\nhouse and sing for joy.\"\n\nThey are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you, when I read\nthese things, I say that love is not of any country; nobility does not\nbelong exclusively to any race, and through all the ages, there have\nbeen a few great and tender souls blossoming in love and pity.\n\nIn my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all the\nrights I have and one more, and that is the right to be protected. That\nis my doctrine. You are married; try and make the woman you love happy.\nWhoever marries simply for himself will make a mistake; but whoever\nloves a woman so well that he says \"I will make her happy,\" makes no\nmistake. And so with the woman who says, \"I will make him happy.\" There\nis only one way to be happy, and that is to make somebody else so, and\nyou cannot be happy by going cross lots; you have got to go the regular\nturnpike road.\n\nIf there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is the head\nof a family--the man who thinks he is \"boss!\" The fellow in the dug-out\nused that word \"boss;\" that was one of his favorite expressions.\n\nImagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in the\nmoonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love, as\nthough the thorn touched her heart--imagine them stopping there in the\nmoonlight and starlight and song, and saying, \"Now, here, let us settle\nwho is 'boss!'\" I tell you it is an infamous word and an infamous\nfeeling--I abhor a man who is \"boss,\" who is going to govern in his\nfamily, and when he speaks orders all the rest to be still as some\nmighty idea is about to be launched from his mouth. Do you know I\ndislike this man unspeakably?\n\nI hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to murder the\nsunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the joy of life?\n\nWhen you go home you ought to go like a ray of light--so that it will,\neven in the night, burst out of the doors and windows and illuminate\nthe darkness. Some men think their mighty brains have been in a turmoil;\nthey have been thinking about who will be alderman from the fifth ward;\nthey have been thinking about politics; great and mighty questions have\nbeen engaging their minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six,\nand want to sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that\nmust have been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in\nthe house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken care\nof five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been nursing\nthem and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of cloth do the\nwork of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and ready to wait upon\nthis gentleman--the head of the family--the boss!\n\nDo you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not see how\nit is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of dollars, or ten\nmillion of dollars, in a city full of want, when he meets almost every\nday the withered hand of beggary and the white lips of famine. How a man\ncan withstand all that, and hold in the clutch of his greed twenty or\nthirty million of dollars, is past my comprehension. I do not see how he\ncan do it. I should not think he could do it any more than he could keep\na pile of lumber on the beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were\ndrowning in the sea.\n\nDo you know that I have known men who would trust their wives with their\nhearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook; not with a dollar.\nWhen I see a man of that kind, I always think he knows which of these\narticles is the most valuable. Think of making your wife a beggar! Think\nof her having to ask you every day for a dollar, or for two dollars or\nfifty cents! \"What did you do with that dollar I gave you last week?\"\nThink of having a wife that is afraid of you! What kind of children do\nyou expect to have with a beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh,\nI tell you if you have but a dollar in the world, and you have got to\nspend it, spend it like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf\nand you the owner of unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! I\nhad rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king, than be a\nking and spend my money like a beggar! If it has got to go, let it go!\n\nGet the best you can for your family--try to look as well as you can\nyourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you looked! Ah,\nyour eye was bright, your step was light, and you looked like a prince.\nDo you know that it is insufferable egotism in you to suppose a woman\nis going to love you always looking as slovenly as you can! Think of\nit! Any good woman on earth will be true to you forever when you do your\nlevel best.\n\nSome people tell me, \"Your doctrine about loving, and wives, and all\nthat, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the poor.\" I tell\nyou to-night there is more love in the homes of the poor than in the\npalaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for\nthe gods, and a palace without love is a den only fit for wild beasts.\nThat is my doctrine! You cannot be so poor that you cannot help\nsomebody. Good nature is the cheapest commodity in the world; and love\nis the only thing that will pay ten per cent, to borrower and lender\nboth. Do not tell me that you have got to be rich! We have a false\nstandard of greatness in the United States. We think here that a man\nmust be great, that he must be notorious; that he must be extremely\nwealthy, or that his name must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is\nall a mistake. It is not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be\npowerful, to be happy. The happy, man is the successful man.\n\nHappiness is the legal tender of the soul.\n\nJoy is wealth.\n\nA little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon--a\nmagnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity--and\ngazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble, where rest at\nlast the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over the balustrade and\nthought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world.\n\nI saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating suicide.\nI saw him at Toulon--I saw him putting down the mob in the streets of\nParis--I saw him at the head of the army of Italy--I saw him crossing\nthe bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand--I saw him in Egypt in\nthe shadows of the pyramids--I saw him conquer the Alps and mingle the\neagles of France with the eagles of the crags. I saw him at Marengo--at\nUlm and Austerlitz. I saw him in Russia, where the infantry of the snow\nand the cavalry of the wild blast scattered his legions like winter's\nwithered leaves. I saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster--driven by\na million bayonets back upon Paris--clutched like a wild beast--banished\nto Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his\ngenius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where Chance and\nFate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. And I saw him\nat St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind him, gazing out upon the\nsad and solemn sea.\n\nI thought of the orphans and widows he had made--of the tears that\nhad been shed for his glory, and of the only woman who ever loved him,\npushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition. And I said I would\nrather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes. I would rather\nhave lived in a hut with a vine growing over the door, and the grapes\ngrowing purple in the kisses of the autumn sun. I would rather have been\nthat poor peasant with my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day\ndied out of the sky--with my children upon my knees and their arms about\nme--I would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless\nsilence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial\nimpersonation of force and murder.\n\nIt is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not necessary to\nbe rich to be just and generous and to have a heart filled with divine\naffection. No matter whether you are rich or poor, treat your wife as\nthough she were a splendid flower, and she will fill your life with\nperfume and with joy.\n\nAnd do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the woman you\nreally love will never grow old to you. Through the wrinkles of time,\nthrough the mask of years, if you really love her, you will always see\nthe face you loved and won. And a woman who really loves a man does not\nsee that he grows old; he is not decrepit to her; he does not tremble;\nhe is not old; she always sees the same gallant gentleman who won her\nhand and heart. I like to think of it in that way; I like to think that\nlove is eternal. And to love in that way and then go down the hill\nof life together, and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of\ngrandchildren, while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the\nleafless branches of the tree of age.\n\nI believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home. I believe\nin the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty, equality and\nlove.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.\n\nIf women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of the little\nchildren in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children who turn pale\nwhen they hear their fathers' footsteps; little children who run away\nwhen they only hear their names called by the lips of a mother; little\nchildren--the children of poverty, the children of crime, the children\nof brutality, wherever they are--flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad\nsea of life--my heart goes out to them, one and all.\n\nI tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and we ought\nto treat them as though they were human beings. They should be reared\nwith love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not with brutality. That\nis my idea of children.\n\nWhen your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as though the\nworld were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with him. A tyrant\nfather will have liars for his children; do you know that?\n\nA lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon the other,\nand when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in your hand, of\ncourse he lies.\n\nI thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity enough in the\nbrain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent, to throw up a little\nbreastwork in the shape of a lie.\n\nWhen one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him; tell him that\nyou have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it is not the best\nway; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man did in Maine when his\nboy left home: \"John, honesty is the best policy; I have tried both.\" Be\nhonest with him. Suppose a man as much larger than you as you are larger\nthan a child five years old, should come at you with a liberty pole in\nhis hand, and in a voice of thunder shout, \"Who broke that plate?\" There\nis not a solitary one of you who would not swear you never saw it,\nor that it was cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these\nchildren? Just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for\nputting false rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and\nblood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living that\nway! Think of a minister punishing his child for not telling all he\nthinks! Just think of it!\n\nWhen your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it feel your\nheart beat against its heart; let the child know that you really and\ntruly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good Christians, when\na child commits a fault, drive it from the door and say: \"Never do you\ndarken this house again.\" Think of that! And then these same people\nwill get down on their knees and ask God to take care of the child they\nhave driven from home. I will never ask God to take care of my children\nunless I am doing my level best in that same direction.\n\nBut I will tell you what I say to my children: \"Go where you will;\ncommit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation you may;\nyou can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my arms, or my\nheart to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend.\"\n\nDo you know that I have seen some people who acted as though they\nthought that when the Saviour said \"Suffer little children to come unto\nme, for of such is the kingdom of heaven,\" he had a raw-hide under his\nmantle, and made that remark simply to get the children within striking\ndistance?\n\nI do not believe in the government of the lash. If any one of you ever\nexpects to whip your children again, I want you to have a photograph\ntaken of yourself when you are in the act, with your face red with\nvulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with eyes swimming\nin tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like a piece of water\nstruck by a sudden cold wind. Have the picture taken. If that little\nchild should die, I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an autumn\nafternoon than to go out to the cemetery, when the maples are clad\nin tender gold, and little scarlet runners are coming, like poems of\nregret, from the sad heart of the earth--and sit down upon the grave and\nlook at that photograph, and think of the flesh now dust that you beat.\nI tell you it is wrong; it is no way to raise children! Make your home\nhappy. Be honest with them. Divide fairly with them in everything.\n\nGive them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive them out of\nyour house. They will want to stay there. Make home pleasant. Let them\nplay any game they wish. Do not be so foolish as to say: \"You may roll\nballs on the ground, but you must not roll them on a green cloth. You\nmay knock them with a mallet, but you must not push them with a cue.\nYou may play with little pieces of paper which have 'authors' written\non them, but you must not have 'cards.'\" Think of it! \"You may go to a\nminstrel show where people blacken themselves and imitate humanity below\nthem, but you must not go to a theatre and see the characters created\nby immortal genius put upon the stage.\" Why? Well, I can't think of any\nreason in the world except \"minstrel\" is a word of two syllables, and\n\"theatre\" has three.\n\nLet children have some daylight at home if you want to keep them there,\nand do not commence at the cradle and shout \"Don't!\" \"Don't!\" \"Stop!\"\nThat is nearly all that is said to a child from the cradle until he is\ntwenty-one years old, and when he comes of age other people begin saying\n\"Don't!\" And the church says \"Don't?\" and the party he belongs to says\n\"Don't!\"\n\nI despise that way of going through this world. Let us have\nliberty--just a little. Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me what\nyou will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come to my\ngrave and truthfully say: \"He who sleeps here never gave us a moment of\npain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an unkind word.\"\n\nPeople justify all kinds of tyranny towards children upon the ground\nthat they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of cruelty lies\nthis infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion contemplates a child\nas a living crime--heir to an infinite curse--doomed to eternal fire.\n\nIn the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a child to\nenjoy himself. When I was a boy Sunday was considered altogether too\nholy to be happy in. Sunday used to commence then when the sun went down\non Saturday night. We commenced at that time for the purpose of getting\na good ready, and when the sun fell below the horizon on Saturday\nevening, there was a darkness fell upon the house ten thousand times\ndeeper than that of night. Nobody said a pleasant word; nobody laughed;\nnobody smiled; the child that looked the sickest was regarded as the\nmost pious. That night you could not even crack hickory nuts. If you\nwere caught chewing gum it was only another evidence of the total\ndepravity of the human heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night.\n\nDyspepsia was in the very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and\nmournful. I have noticed all my life that many people think they have\nreligion when they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found\nan absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow the\nchurch has ever received.\n\nOn Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we went to\nchurch. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high, with a\nlittle sounding-board above him, and he commenced at \"firstly\" and went\non and on and on to about \"twenty-thirdly.\" Then he made a few remarks\nby way of application; and then took a general view of the subject, and\nin about two hours reached the last chapter in Revelations.\n\nIn those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was no fire in\nthe church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be comfortable while\nyou were thanking God. The first church that ever had a stove in it in\nNew England, divided on that account. So the first church in which they\nsang by note, was torn in fragments.\n\nAfter the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the catechism with\nthe chief end of man. We went through with that. We sat in a row with\nour feet coming in about six inches of the floor. The minister asked\nus if we knew that we all deserved to go to hell, and we all answered\n\"Yes.\" Then we were asked if we would be willing to go hell if it was\nGod's will, and every little liar shouted \"Yes.\" Then the same sermon\nwas preached once more, commencing at the other end and going back.\nAfter that, we started for home, sad and solemn--overpowered with the\nwisdom displayed in the scheme of the atonement. When we got home, if we\nhad been good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take\nus out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When\nI looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read\nthe half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and\nforget-fulness, it was a great comfort. The reflection came to my mind\nthat the observance of the Sabbath could not last always. Sometimes they\nwould sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these cheerful lines:\n\n     \"Where congregations ne'er break up,\n      And Sabbaths never end.\"\n\nThese lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against even heaven. Then\nwe had good books that we read on Sundays by way of keeping us happy\nand contented. There were Milners' \"History of the Waldenses,\" Baxter's\n\"Call to the Unconverted,\" Yahn's \"Archaeology of the Jews,\" and\nJenkyns' \"On the Atonement.\" I used to read Jenkyns' \"On the Atonement.\"\nI have often thought that an atonement would have to be exceedingly\nbroad in its provisions to cover the case of a man who would write a\nbook like that for a boy.\n\nBut at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went down we\nwere free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out to see how the\nsun was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it was stopping from\npure meanness. But finally it went down. It had to. And when the last\nrim of light sank below the horizon, off would go our caps, and we would\ngive three cheers for liberty once more.\n\nSabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastile. Every christian\nwas a kind of turnkey, and every child was a prisoner,--a convict. In\nthat dungeon, a smile was a crime.\n\nIt was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holy day. Think of\nthat!\n\nA little child would go out into the garden, and there would be a tree\nladen with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean against it, and\nthere would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing and swinging, and\nthinking, about four little speckled eggs, warmed by the breast of its\nmate,--singing and swinging, and the music in happy waves rippling out\nof its tiny throat, and the flowers blossoming, the air filled with\nperfume and the great white clouds floating in the sky, and the little\nboy would lean up against that tree and think about hell and the worm\nthat never dies.\n\nI have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet did not\ntouch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted. In order to\nimpress upon the children the length of time they would probably stay if\nthey settled in that country, the preacher would frequently give us the\nfollowing illustration: \"Suppose that once in a billion years a bird\nshould come from some far-distant planet, and carry off in its little\nbill a grain of sand, a time would finally come when the last atom\ncomposing this earth would be carried away; and when this last atom was\ntaken, it would not even be sun up in hell.\" Think of such an infamous\ndoctrine being taught to children!\n\nThe laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike\nwith hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp strung with Apollo's\ngolden hair; fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and\ndim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy\nsilver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the\nlovers wandering 'mid the vine-clad hills. But know, your sweetest\nstrains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh--the\nlaugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy. O\nrippling river of laughter, thou art the blessed boundary line between\nthe beasts and men; and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some\nfretful fiend of care. O Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there\nare dimples enough in thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the\ntears of grief.\n\nAnd yet the minds of children have been polluted by this infamous\ndoctrine of eternal punishment. I denounce it to-day as a doctrine, the\ninfamy of which no language is sufficient to express.\n\nWhere did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and women and\nchildren come from? It came from the low and beastly skull of that\nwretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a souvenir from the\nanimals. The doctrine of eternal punishment was born in the glittering\neyes of snakes--snakes that hung in fearful coils watching for their\nprey. It was born of the howl and bark and growl of wild beasts. It\nwas born of the grin of hyenas and of the depraved chatter of unclean\nbaboons. I despise it with every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a\nGod in the serene heavens that will damn his children for the expression\nof an honest belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your\northodox creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide\nworld ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these\nmen are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and that\nthey are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this doctrine as\nthe most infamous of lies. When the great ship containing the hopes and\naspirations of the world, when the great ship freighted with mankind\ngoes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go\ndown with the ship. I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of\npaddling away in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship, with\nthose who love me, and with those whom I have loved. If there is a God\nwho will damn his children forever, I would rather go to hell than to\ngo to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous tyrant. I make my\nchoice now. I despise that doctrine. It has covered the cheeks of this\nworld with tears. It has polluted the hearts of children, and poisoned\nthe imaginations of men. It has been a constant pain, a perpetual terror\nto every good man and woman and child. It has filled the good with\nhorror and with fear; but it has had no effect upon the infamous and\nbase. It has wrung the hearts of the tender: it has furrowed the cheeks\nof the good. This doctrine never should be preached again. What right\nhave you, sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand\nat the portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill\nthe future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine:\nneither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man who\nbelieves it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing heart, will\ngo insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does not go insane has\nthe heart of a snake and the conscience of a hyena.\n\nJonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is true, is\nnow in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he hears the cries\nof the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said: \"Can the believing\nhusband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving wife in hell? Can the\nbelieving father in heaven be happy with his unbelieving children\nin hell? Can the loving wife in heaven be happy with her unbelieving\nhusband in hell?\" And he replies: \"I tell you, yea. Such will be their\nsense of justice, that it will increase rather than diminish their\nbliss.\" There is no wild beast in the jungles of Africa whose reputation\nwould not be tarnished by the expression of such a doctrine.\n\nThese doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in the name of\nuniversal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and charity. Do not,\nI pray you, soil the minds of your children with this dogma. Let them\nread for themselves; let them think for themselves.\n\nDo not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a row. Treat\nthem like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair and honest\nwith them; give them a chance. Recollect that their rights are equal to\nyours. Do not have it in your mind that you must govern them; that they\nmust obey. Throw away forever the idea of master and slave.\n\nIn old times they used to make the children go to bed when they were not\nsleepy, and get up when they were sleepy. I say let them go to bed when\nthey are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.\n\nBut you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for the poor.\nWell, if the poor have to waken their children early in the morning it\nis as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow. Give your children\nfreedom; let them preserve their individuality. Let your children eat\nwhat they desire, and commence at the end of a dinner they like. That is\ntheir business and not yours. They know what they wish to eat. If they\nare given their liberty from the first, they know what they want better\nthan any doctor in the world can prescribe. Do you know that all the\nimprovement that has ever been made in the practice of medicine has\nbeen made by the recklessness of patients and not by the doctors?\nFor thousands and thousands of years the doctors would not let a man\nsuffering from fever have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as\npoison. But every now and then some man got reckless and said, \"I had\nrather die than not to slake my thirst.\" Then he would drink two or\nthree quarts of water and get well. And when the doctor was told of\nwhat the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still\nalive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear such a\nfrightful strain. The reckless men, however, kept on drinking the water,\nand persisted in getting well. And finally the doctors said: \"In a\nfever, water is the very best thing you can take.\" So, I have more\nconfidence in the voice of nature about such things than I have in the\nconclusions of the medical schools.\n\nLet your children have freedom and they will fall into your ways; they\nwill do substantially as you do; but if you try to make them, there is\nsome magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be\ndriven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing that ever happened\nfor this world, that people are that way. What would have become of the\npeople five hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the advice\nof the doctors? They would have all been dead. What would the people\nhave been, if at any age of the world they had followed implicitly\nthe direction of the church? They would have all been idiots. It is a\nsplendid thing that there is always some grand man who will not mind,\nand who will think for himself.\n\nI believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I believe\nin the democracy of the family. If in this world there is anything\nsplendid, it is a home where all are equals.\n\nYou will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell their\nchildren to \"let their victuals stop their mouths.\" They used to eat as\nthough it were a religious ceremony--a very solemn thing. Life should\nnot be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see the children at table,\nand hear each one telling of the wonderful things he has seen and heard.\nI like to hear the clatter of knives and forks and spoons mingling with\ntheir happy voices. I had rather hear it than any opera that was ever\nput upon the boards. Let the children have liberty. Be honest and fair\nwith them; be just; be tender, and they will make you rich in love and\njoy.\n\nMen are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.\n\nThe human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but I have\nsome excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very well adapted\nto raising good people. In the first place, nearly all of it is water.\nIt is much better adapted to fish culture than to the production of\nfolks. Of that portion which is land not one-eighth has suitable soil\nand climate to produce great men and women. You cannot raise men and\nwomen of genius, without the proper soil and climate, any more than you\ncan raise corn and wheat upon the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must\nhave the necessary conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you\nmust have the soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must\nnot be so great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage,\novercome them. There is upon this world only a narrow belt of land,\ncircling zigzag the globe, upon which you can produce men and women of\ntalent. In the Southern Hemisphere the real climate that man needs falls\nmostly upon the sea, and the result is, that the southern half of our\nworld has never produced a man or woman of great genius. In the far\nnorth there is no genius--it is too cold. In the far south there is no\ngenius--it is too warm. There must be winter, and there must be summer.\nIn a country where man needs no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his\nnormal condition. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence. Above\nall, it is the mother of the family relation. Winter holds in its icy\narms the husband and wife and the sweet children. If upon this earth we\never have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter, at\nnight, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see the\nfamily about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the cat playing\nwith the yarn; the children wishing they had as many dolls or dollars or\nknives or somethings, as there are sparks going out to join the roaring\nblast; the father reading and smoking, and the clouds rising like\nincense from the altar of domestic joy. I never passed such a house\nwithout feeling that I had received a benediction.\n\nCivilization, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual advancement, are\nall flowers that blossom in the drifted snow. I do not know that I can\nbetter illustrate the great truth that only part of the world is adapted\nto the production of great men and women than by calling your attention\nto the difference between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. In\nthe valley you find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly\nto the storm, and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the\npine, the birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little\ndwarfed trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope\nreversed--every limb twisted as though in pain--getting a scanty\nsubsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and on,\nuntil at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss, and\nvegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms where\nthe mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where their\nsurroundings are unfavorable. You must have the proper climate and soil.\n\nA few years ago we were talking about the annexation of Santo Domingo\nto this country. I was in Washington at the time. I was opposed to it.\nI was told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil produced\neverything. But I said: \"We do not want it; it is not the right kind\nof country in which to raise American citizens. Such a climate would\ndebauch us. You might go there with five thousand Congregational\npreachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand professors in\ncolleges, five thousand of the solid men of Boston and their wives;\nsettle them all in Santo Domingo, and you will see the second generation\nriding upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grapevine bridle, hair\nsticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a rooster under each\narm, going to a cock fight on Sunday.\" Such is the influence of climate.\n\nScience, however, is gradually widening the area within which men\nof genius can be produced. We are conquering the north with houses,\nclothing, food and fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the heat of the\nsouth. If we attend to this world instead of another, we may in time\ncover the land with men and women of genius. I have still another\nexcuse. I believe that man came up from, the lower animals. I do not\nsay this as a fact. I simply say I believe it to be a fact. Upon\nthat question I stand about eight to seven, which, for all practical\npurposes, is very near a certainty. When I first heard of that doctrine\nI did not like it. My heart was filled with sympathy for those people\nwho have nothing to be proud of except ancestors. I thought, how\nterrible this will be upon the nobility of the old world. Think of their\nbeing forced to trace their ancestry back to the duke Orang Outang, or\nto the princess Chimpanzee. After thinking it all over, I came to the\nconclusion that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of\nmyself. I read about rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that\neverybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the cheek.\nI asked: \"What are they?\" I was told: \"They are the remains of\nmuscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they went into\nbankruptcy. They are the muscles with which your ancestors used to flap\ntheir ears.\" I do not now so much wonder that we once had them as that\nwe have outgrown them. After all I had rather belong to a race that\nstarted from the skulless vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas,\nvertebrates wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without\nknowing where they were going, but that in some way began to develop,\nand began to get a little higher and a little higher in the scale of\nexistence; that came up by degrees through millions of ages through\nall the animal world, through all that crawls and swims and floats and\nclimbs and walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the dug-out; and\nthen from this man, getting a little grander, and each one below calling\nevery one above him a heretic, calling every one who had made a little\nadvance an infidel or an atheist--for in the history of this world the\nman who is ahead has always been called a heretic--would rather come\nfrom a race that started from that skulless vertebrate, and came up and\nup and up and finally produced Shakespeare, the man who found the human\nintellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and\nit became a palace domed and pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all\nthe fields of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there have\nbeen only gleaners of straw and chaff--I would rather belong to that\nrace that commenced a skulless vertebrate and produced Shakespeare, a\nrace that has before it an infinite future, with the angel of progress\nleaning from the far horizon, beckoning men forward, upward and onward\nforever--I had rather belong to such a race, commencing there, producing\nthis, and with that hope, than to have sprung from a perfect pair upon\nwhich the Lord has lost money every moment from that day to this.\n\n\n\n\n\nCONCLUSION.\n\nI have given you my honest thought. Surely investigation is better than\nunthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than fear. This world\nshould be controlled by the living, not by the dead. The grave is not a\nthrone, and a corpse is not a king. Man should not try to live on ashes.\n\nThe theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now living.\nMore than this cannot be said. About this world little is known,--about\nanother world, nothing.\n\nOur fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were slaves. The\nmakers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every dogma that we have,\nhas upon it the mark of whip, the rust of chain, and the ashes of fagot.\n\nOur fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They believed in the\nlogic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They despised thought. They\nabhorred liberty.\n\nSuperstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give us truth.\nWhen all have the right to think and to express their thoughts, every\nbrain will give to all the best it has. The world will then be filled\nwith intellectual wealth.\n\nAs long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as a minister\ninspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing simply because\nthey do not understand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your\nself-respect, as long as the church has power, as long as mankind\nworship a book, just so long will the world be filled with intellectual\npaupers and vagrants, covered with the soiled and faded rags of\nsuperstition.\n\nAs long as woman regards the bible as the charter of her rights, she\nwill be the slave of man. The bible was not written by a woman. Within\nits lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame for her. She is\nregarded as the property of man. She is made to ask forgiveness for\nbecoming a mother. She is as much below her husband, as her husband is\nbelow Christ. She is not allowed to speak. The gospel is too pure to be\nspoken by her polluted lips. Woman should learn in silence.\n\nIn the bible will be found no description of a civilized home. The free\nmother, surrounded by free and loving children, adored by a free man,\nher husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the bible. They\ndid not believe in the democracy of home--in the republicanism of the\nfireside.\n\nThese inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of children. They\nwere the advocates of brute force--the disciples of the lash. They knew\nnothing of human rights. Their doctrines have brutalized the homes of\nmillions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.\n\nLet us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the slavery of\ndead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air.\n\nThere has never been upon the earth a generation of free men and\nwomen. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the chains are\nbroken--until dungeons are not regarded as temples. Wait until solemnity\nis not mistaken for wisdom--until mental cowardice ceases to be known\nas reverence. Wait until the living are considered the equals of the\ndead--until the cradle takes precedence of the coffin. Wait until what\nwe know can be spoken without regard to what others may believe. Wait\nuntil teachers take the place of preachers--until followers become\ninvestigators. Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.\n\nIn this creed there will be but one word--Liberty.\n\nOh Liberty, float not forever in the far horizon--remain not forever in\nthe dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and poet, but come and\nmake thy home among the children of men!\n\nI know not what discoveries, what inventions what thoughts may leap\nfrom the brain of the world. I know not what garments of glory may be\nwoven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the victories to be won\nupon the fields of thought; but I do know, that coming from the infinite\nsea of the future, there will never touch this \"bank and shoal of time\"\na richer gift, a rarer blessing than liberty for man, for woman, and for\nchild.\n\n\n\n\n\n1776. THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE.\n\n\n     One Hundred Years Ago our Fathers retired the Gods from Politics.\n\nTHE Declaration of Independence is the grandest, the bravest, and\nthe profoundest political document that was ever signed by the\nrepresentatives of a people. It is the embodiment of physical and moral\ncourage and of political wisdom.\n\nI say of physical courage, because it was a declaration of war against\nthe most powerful nation then on the globe; a declaration of war by\nthirteen weak, unorganized colonies; a declaration of war by a few\npeople, without military stores, without wealth, without strength,\nagainst the most powerful kingdom on the earth; a declaration of war\nmade when the British navy, at that day the mistress of every sea, was\nhovering along the coast of America, looking after defenseless towns and\nvillages to ravage and destroy. It was made when thousands of English\nsoldiers were upon our soil, and when the principal cities of America\nwere, in the substantial possession of the enemy. And so, I say, all\nthings considered, it was the bravest political document ever signed by\nman. And if it was physically brave, the moral courage of the document\nis almost infinitely beyond the physical. They had the courage not only,\nbut they had the almost infinite wisdom, to declare that all men are\ncreated equal. Such things had occasionally been said by some political\nenthusiast in the olden time, but for the first time in the history of\nthe world, the representatives of a nation, the representatives of\na real, living, breathing, hoping people, declared that all men are\ncreated equal. With one blow, with one stroke of the pen, they\nstruck down all the cruel, heartless barriers that aristocracy, that\npriestcraft, that kingcraft had raised between man and man. They struck\ndown with one immortal blow, that infamous spirit of caste that makes\na god almost a beast, and a beast almost a god. With one word, with one\nblow, they wiped away and utterly destroyed all that had been done by\ncenturies of war--centuries of hypocrisy--centuries of injustice.\n\nWhat more did they do? They then declared that each man has a right to\nlive. And what does that mean? It means that he has the right to make\nhis living. It means that he has the right to breathe the air, to work\nthe land, that he stands the equal of every other human being beneath\nthe shining stars; entitled to the product of his labor--the labor of\nhis hand and of his brain.\n\nWhat more? That every man has the right to pursue his own happiness in\nhis own way. Grander words than these have never been spoken by man.\n\nAnd what more did these men say? They laid down the doctrine that\ngovernments were instituted among men for the purpose of preserving the\nrights of the people. The old idea was that people existed solely for\nthe benefit of the state--that is to say, for kings and nobles.\n\nThe old idea was that the people were the wards of king and priest--that\ntheir bodies belonged to one and their souls to the other.\n\nAnd what more? That the people are the source of political power. That\nwas not only a revelation, but it was a revolution. It changed the ideas\nof people with regard to the source of political power. For the first\ntime it made human beings men. What was the old idea? The old idea was\nthat no political power came from, nor in any manner belonged to, the\npeople. The old idea was that the political power came from the clouds;\nthat the political power came in some miraculous way from heaven; that\nit came down to kings, and queens, and robbers. That was the old idea.\nThe nobles lived upon the labor of the people; the people had no rights;\nthe nobles stole what they had and divided with the kings, and the kings\npretended to divide what they stole with God Almighty. The source, then,\nof political power was from above. The people were responsible to the\nnobles, the nobles to the king, and the people had no political rights\nwhatever, no more than the wild beasts of the forest. The kings were\nresponsible to God; not to the people. The kings were responsible to the\nclouds; not to the toiling millions they robbed and plundered.\n\nAnd our forefathers, in this declaration of independence, reversed this\nthing, and said: No; the people, they are the source of political power,\nand their rulers, these presidents, these kings, are but the agents and\nservants of the great, sublime people. For the first time, really, in\nthe history of the world, the king was made to get off the throne\nand the people were royally seated thereon. The people became the\nsovereigns, and the old sovereigns became the servants and the agents\nof the people. It is hard for you and me now to imagine even the immense\nresults of that change. It is hard for you and for me, at this day, to\nunderstand how thoroughly it had been ingrained in the brain of almost\nevery man, that the king had some wonderful right over him; that in\nsome strange way the king owned him; that in some miraculous manner he\nbelonged, body and soul, to somebody who rode on a horse--to somebody\nwith epaulettes on his shoulders and a tinsel crown upon his brainless\nhead.\n\nOur forefathers had been educated in that idea, and when they first\nlanded on American shores they believed it. They thought they belonged\nto somebody, and that they must be loyal to some thief, who could trace\nhis pedigree back to antiquity's most successful robber.\n\nIt took a long time for them to get that idea out of their heads and\nhearts. They were three thousand miles away from the despotisms of\nthe old world, and every wave of the sea was an assistant to them. The\ndistance helped to disenchant their minds of that infamous belief, and\nevery mile between them and the pomp and glory of monarchy helped to put\nrepublican ideas and thoughts into their minds. Besides that, when\nthey came to this country, when the savage was in the forest and three\nthousand miles of waves on the other side, menaced by barbarians on\nthe one side and famine on the other, they learned that a man who had\ncourage, a man who had thought, was as good as any other man in the\nworld, and they built up, as it were, in spite of themselves, little\nrepublics. And the man that had the most nerve and heart was the best\nman, whether he had any noble blood in his veins or not.\n\nIt has been a favorite idea with me that our forefathers were educated\nby Nature; that they grew grand as the continent upon which they landed;\nthat the great rivers--the wide plains--the splendid lakes--the lonely\nforests--the sublime mountains--that all these things stole into and\nbecame a part of their being, and they grew great as the country in\nwhich they lived. They began to hate the narrow, contracted views of\nEurope. They were educated by their surroundings, and every little\ncolony had to be, to a certain extent, a republic. The kings of the old\nworld endeavored to parcel out this land to their favorites. But there\nwere too many Indians. There was too much courage required for them to\ntake and keep it, and so men had to come here who were dissatisfied with\nthe old country--who were dissatisfied with England, dissatisfied with\nFrance, with Germany, with Ireland and Holland. The kings' favorites\nstayed at home. Men came here for liberty, and on account of certain\nprinciples they entertained and held dearer than life. And they were\nwilling to work, willing to fell the forests, to fight the savages,\nwilling to go through all the hardships, perils and dangers of a new\ncountry, of a new land; and the consequence was that our country was\nsettled by brave and adventurous spirits, by men who had opinions of\ntheir own and were willing to live in the wild forests for the sake of\nexpressing those opinions, even if they expressed them only to trees,\nrocks, and savage men. The best blood of the old world came to the new.\n\nWhen they first came over they did not have a great deal of political\nphilosophy, nor the best ideas of liberty. We might as well tell the\ntruth. When the Puritans first came, they were narrow. They did not\nunderstand what liberty meant--what religious liberty, what political\nliberty, was; but they found out in a few years. There was one feeling\namong them that rises to their eternal honor like a white shaft to the\nclouds--they were in favor of universal education. Wherever they went\nthey built school houses, introduced books, and ideas of literature.\nThey believed that every man should know how to read and how to write,\nand should find out all that his capacity allowed him to comprehend.\nThat is the glory of the Puritan fathers.\n\nThey forgot in a little while what they had suffered, and they forgot\nto apply the principle of universal liberty--of toleration. Some of\nthe colonies did not forget it, and I want to give credit where credit\nshould be given. The Catholics of Maryland were the first people on the\nnew continent to declare universal religious toleration. Let this be\nremembered to their eternal honor. Let it be remembered to the disgrace\nof the Protestant government of England, that it caused this grand law\nto be repealed. And to the honor and credit of the Catholics of Maryland\nlet it be remembered, that the moment they got back into power they\nre-enacted the old law. The Baptists of Rhode Island also, led by Roger\nWilliams, were in favor of universal religious liberty.\n\nNo American should fail to honor Roger Williams. He was the first grand\nadvocate of the liberty of the soul. He was in favor of the eternal\ndivorce of church and state. So far as I know, he was the only man at\nthat time in this country who was in favor of real religious liberty.\nWhile the Catholics of Maryland declared in favor of religious\n_toleration_, they had no idea of religious liberty. They would not\nallow any one to call in question the doctrine of the trinity, or the\ninspiration of the scriptures. They stood ready with branding iron and\ngallows to burn and choke out of man the idea that he had a right to\nthink and to express his thoughts.\n\nSo many religions met in our country--so many theories and dogmas came\nin contact--so many follies, mistakes and stupidities became acquainted\nwith each other, that religion began to fall somewhat into disrepute.\nBesides this, the question of a new nation began to take precedence of\nall others.\n\nThe people were too much interested in this world to quarrel about the\nnext. The preacher was lost in the patriot. The bible was read to find\npassages against kings.\n\nEverybody was discussing the rights of man. Farmers and mechanics\nsuddenly became statesmen, and in every shop and cabin nearly every\nquestion was asked and answered.\n\nDuring these years of political excitement, the interest in religion\nabated to that degree that a common purpose animated men of all sects\nand creeds.\n\nAt last our fathers became tired of being colonists--tired of writing\nand reading and signing petitions, and presenting them on their bended\nknees to an idiot king. They began to have an aspiration to form a new\nnation, to be citizens of a new republic instead of subjects of an\nold monarchy. They had the idea--the Puritans, the Catholics, the\nEpiscopalians, the Baptists, the Quakers, and a few Free Thinkers, all\nhad the idea--that they would like to form a new nation.\n\nNow, do not understand that all of our fathers were in favor of\nindependence. Do not understand that they were all like Jefferson; that\nthey were all like Adams or Lee; that they were all like Thomas Paine\nor John Hancock. There were thousands and thousands of them who were\nopposed to American independence. There were thousands and thousands who\nsaid: \"When you say men are created equal, it is a lie; when you say the\npolitical power resides in the great body of the people, it is false.\"\nThousands and thousands of them said: \"We prefer Great Britain.\" But\nthe men who were in favor of independence, the men who knew that a new\nnation must be born, went on full of hope and courage, and nothing could\ndaunt or stop or stay the heroic, fearless few.\n\nThey met in Philadelphia; and the resolution was moved by Lee of\nVirginia, that the colonies ought to be independent states, and ought to\ndissolve their political connection with Great Britain.\n\nThey made up their minds that a new nation must be formed. All nations\nhad been, so to speak, the wards of some church. The religious idea as\nto the source of power had been at the foundation of all governments,\nand had been the bane and curse of man.\n\nHappily for us, there was no church strong enough to dictate to the\nrest. Fortunately for us, the colonists not only, but the colonies\ndiffered widely in their religious views. There were the Puritans who\nhated the Episcopalians, and Episcopalians who hated the Catholics,\nand the Catholics who hated both, while the Quakers held them all in\ncontempt. There they were, of every sort, and color, and kind, and\nhow was it that they came together? They had a common aspiration. They\nwanted to form a new nation. More than that, most of them cordially\nhated Great Britain; and they pledged each other to forget these\nreligious prejudices, for a time at least, and agreed that there should\nbe only one religion until they got through, and that was the religion\nof patriotism. They solemnly agreed that the new nation should not\nbelong to any particular church, but that it should secure the rights of\nall.\n\nOur fathers founded the first secular government that was ever founded\nin this world. Recollect that. The first secular government; the first\ngovernment that said every church has exactly the same rights, and no\nmore; every religion has the same rights, and no more. In other words,\nour fathers were the first men who had the sense, had the genius, to\nknow that no church should be allowed to have a sword; that it should be\nallowed only to exert its moral influence.\n\nYou might as well have a government united by force with Art, or with\nPoetry, or with Oratory, as with Religion. Religion should have the\ninfluence upon mankind that its goodness, that its morality, its\njustice, its charity, its reason, and its argument give it, and no more.\nReligion should have the effect upon mankind that it necessarily has,\nand no more. The religion that has to be supported by law is without\nvalue, not only, but a fraud and curse. The religious argument that has\nto be supported by a musket, is hardly worth making. A prayer that must\nhave a cannon behind it, better never be uttered. Forgiveness ought not\nto go in partnership with shot and shell. Love need not carry knives and\nrevolvers.\n\nSo, our fathers said: \"We will form a secular government, and under the\nflag with which we are going to enrich the air, we will allow every man\nto worship God as he thinks best.\" They said: \"Religion is an individual\nthing between each man and his Creator, and he can worship as he pleases\nand as he desires.\" And why did they do this? The history of the world\nwarned them that the liberty of man was not safe in the clutch and grasp\nof any church. They had read of and seen the thumb-screws, the racks and\nthe dungeons of the inquisition. They knew all about the hypocrisy of\nthe olden time. They knew that the church had stood side by side with\nthe throne; that the high priests were hypocrites, and that the kings\nwere robbers. They also knew that if they gave to any church power, it\nwould corrupt the best church in the world. And so they said that power\nmust not reside in a church nor in a sect, but power must be wherever\nhumanity is,--in the great body of the people. And the officers and\nservants of the people must be responsible to them. And so I say again,\nas I said in the commencement, this is the wisest, the profoundest, the\nbravest political document that ever was written and signed by man.\n\nThey turned, as I tell you, everything squarely about. They derived\nall their authority from the people. They did away forever with the\ntheological idea of government.\n\nAnd what more did they say? They said that whenever the rulers abused\nthis authority, this power, incapable of destruction, returned to the\npeople. How did they come to say this? I will tell you. They were pushed\ninto it. How? They felt that they were oppressed; and whenever a man\nfeels that he is the subject of injustice, his perception of right and\nwrong is wonderfully quickened.\n\nNobody was ever in prison wrongfully who did not believe in the writ\nof _habeas corpus_. Nobody ever suffered wrongfully without instantly\nhaving ideas of justice.\n\nAnd they began to inquire what rights the king of Great Britain had.\nThey began to search for the charter of his authority. They began to\ninvestigate and dig down to the bed-rock upon which society must be\nfounded, and when they got down there, forced there, too, by their\noppressors, forced against their own prejudices and education, they\nfound at the bottom of things, not lords, not nobles, not pulpits, not\nthrones, but humanity and the rights of men.\n\nAnd so they said, we are men; we are _men_. They found out they were\nmen. And the next thing they said, was, \"We will be free men; we are\nweary of being colonists; we are tired of being subjects; we are men;\nand these colonies ought to be states; and these states ought to be a\nnation; and that nation ought to drive the last British soldier into the\nsea.\" And so they signed that brave declaration of independence.\n\nI thank every one of them from the bottom of my heart for signing\nthat sublime declaration. I thank them for their courage--for their\npatriotism--for their wisdom--for the splendid confidence in themselves\nand in the human race. I thank them for what they were, and for what\nwe are--for what they did and for what we have received--for what they\nsuffered, and for what we enjoy.\n\nWhat would we have been if we had remained colonists and subjects? What\nwould we have been to-day? Nobodies,--ready to get down on our knees\nand crawl in the very dust at the sight of somebody that was supposed to\nhave in him some drop of blood that flowed in the veins of that mailed\nmarauder--that royal robber, William the Conqueror.\n\nThey signed that declaration of independence, although they knew that it\nwould produce a long, terrible, and bloody war. They looked forward and\nsaw poverty, deprivation, gloom and death.\n\nBut they also saw, on the wrecked clouds of war, the beautiful bow of\nfreedom.\n\nThese grand men were enthusiasts; and the world has only been raised\nby enthusiasts. In every country there have been a few who have given\na national aspiration to the people. The enthusiasts of 1776 were the\nbuilders and framers of this great and splendid government; and they\nwere the men who saw, although others did not, the golden fringe of\nthe mantle of glory that will finally cover this world. They knew, they\nfelt, they believed that they would give a new constellation to\nthe political heavens--that they would make the Americans a grand\npeople--grand as the continent upon which they lived.\n\nThe war commenced. There was little money, and less credit. The new\nnation had but few friends. To a great extent, each soldier of freedom\nhad to clothe and feed himself. He was poor and pure--brave and good,\nand so he went to the fields of death to fight for the rights of man.\n\nWhat did the soldier leave when he went?\n\nHe left his wife and children.\n\nDid he leave them in a beautiful home, surrounded by civilization, in\nthe repose of law, in the security of a great and powerful republic?\n\nNo. He left his wife and children on the edge, on the fringe of the\nboundless forest, in which crouched and crept the red savage, who was at\nthat time the ally of the still more savage Briton. He left his wife to\ndefend herself, and he left the prattling babes to be defended by their\nmother and by nature. The mother made the living; she planted the corn\nand the potatoes, and hoed them in the sun, raised the children, and\nin the darkness of night, told them about their brave father, and the\n\"sacred cause.\" She told them that in a little while the war would be\nover and father would come back covered with honor and glory.\n\nThink of the women, of the sweet children who listened for the footsteps\nof the dead--who waited through the sad and desolate years for the dear\nones who never came.\n\nThe soldiers of 1776 did not march away with music and banners. They\nwent in silence, looked at and gazed after by eyes filled with tears.\nThey went to meet, not an equal, but a superior--to fight five times\ntheir number--to make a desperate stand--to stop the advance of the\nenemy, and then, when their ammunition gave out, seek the protection of\nrocks, of rivers and of hills.\n\nLet me say here: The greatest test of courage on the earth is to bear\ndefeat without losing heart. That army is the bravest that can be\nwhipped the greatest number of times and fight again.\n\nOver the entire territory, so to speak, then settled by our forefathers,\nthey were driven again and again. Now and then they would meet the\nEnglish with something like equal numbers, and then the eagle of victory\nwould proudly perch upon the stripes and stars. And so they went on as\nbest they could, hoping and fighting until they came to the dark and\nsombre gloom of Valley Forge.\n\nThere were very few hearts then beneath that flag that did not begin to\nthink that the struggle was useless; that all the blood and treasure had\nbeen spent and shed in vain. But there were some men gifted with that\nwonderful prophecy that fulfils itself, and with that wonderful magnetic\npower that makes heroes of everybody they come in contact with.\n\nAnd so our fathers went through the gloom of that terrible time, and\nstill fought on. Brave men wrote grand words, cheering the despondent,\nbrave men did brave deeds, the rich man gave his wealth, the poor man\ngave his life, until at last, by the victory of Yorktown, the old banner\nwon its place in the air, and became glorious forever.\n\nSeven long years of war--fighting for what? For the principle that\nall men are created equal--a truth that nobody ever disputed except a\nscoundrel; nobody, nobody in the entire history of this world. No man\never denied that truth who was not a rascal, and at heart a thief;\nnever, never, and never will. What else were they fighting for? Simply\nthat in America every man should have a right to life, liberty, and the\npursuit of happiness. Nobody ever denied that except a villain; never,\nnever. It has been denied by kings--they were thieves. It has been\ndenied by statesmen--they were liars. It has been denied by priests, by\nclergymen, by cardinals, by bishops and by popes--they were hypocrites.\n\nWhat else were they fighting for? For the idea that all political power\nis vested in the great body of the people. The great body of the people\nmake all the money; do all the work. They plow the land, cut down the\nforests; they produce everything that is produced. Then who shall say\nwhat shall be done with what is produced except the producer? Is it the\nnon-producing thief, sitting on a throne, surrounded by vermin?\n\nThose were the things they were fighting for; and that is all they\nwere fighting for. They fought to build up a new, a great nation; to\nestablish an asylum for the oppressed of the world everywhere. They knew\nthe history of this world. They knew the history of human slavery.\n\nThe history of civilization is the history of the slow and painful\nenfranchisement of the human race. In the olden times the family was a\nmonarchy, the farther being the monarch. The mother and children were\nthe veriest slaves. The will of the father was the supreme law. He had\nthe power of life and death. It took thousands of years to civilize this\nfather, thousands of years to make the condition of wife and mother and\nchild even tolerable. A few families constituted a tribe; the tribe\nhad a chief; the chief was a tyrant; a few tribes formed a nation; the\nnation was governed by a king, who was also a tyrant, A strong nation\nrobbed, plundered, and took captive the weaker ones. This was the\ncommencement of human slavery.\n\nIt is not possible for the human imagination to conceive of the horrors\nof slavery. It has left no possible crime uncommitted, no possible\ncruelty unperpetrated. It has been practised and defended by all nations\nin some form. It has been upheld by all religions. It has been defended\nby nearly every pulpit. From the profits derived from the slave trade\nchurches have been built, cathedrals reared and priests paid. Slavery\nhas been blessed by bishop, by cardinal, and by pope. It has received\nthe sanction of statesmen, of kings, and of queens. It has been defended\nby the throne, the pulpit, and the bench. Monarchs have shared in the\nprofits. Clergymen have taken their part of the spoil, reciting passages\nof scripture in its defense at the same time, and judges have taken\ntheir portion in the name of equity and law.\n\nOnly a few years ago our ancestors were slaves. Only a few years ago\nthey passed with and belonged to the soil, like coal under it and rocks\non it. Only a few years ago they were treated like beasts of burden,\nworse far than we treat our animals at the present day. Only a few years\nago it was a crime in England for a man to have a bible in his house,\na crime for which men were hanged, and their bodies afterwards burned.\nOnly a few years ago fathers could and did sell their children. Only\na few years ago our ancestors were not allowed to speak or write their\nthoughts--that being a crime. Only a few years ago to be honest, at\nleast in the expression of your ideas, was a felony. To do right was a\ncapital offense; and in those days chains and whips were the incentives\nto labor, and the preventives of thought. Honesty was a vagrant,\njustice a fugitive, and liberty in chains. Only a few years ago men were\ndenounced because they doubted the inspiration of the bible--because\nthey denied miracles and laughed at the wonders recounted by the ancient\nJews.\n\nOnly a few years ago a man had to believe in the total depravity of the\nhuman heart in order to be respectable. Only a few years ago, people\nwho thought God too good to punish in eternal flames an unbaptized child\nwere considered infamous.\n\nAs soon as our ancestors began to get free they began to enslave others.\nWith an inconsistency that defies explanation, they practiced upon\nothers the same outrages that had been perpetrated upon them. As soon as\nwhite slavery began to be abolished, black slavery commenced.\n\nIn this infamous traffic nearly every nation of Europe embarked.\nFortunes were quickly realized; the avarice and cupidity of Europe were\nexcited; all ideas of justice were discarded; pity fled from the human\nbreast; a few good, brave men recited the horrors of the trade; avarice\nwas deaf; religion refused to hear; the trade went on; the governments\nof Europe upheld it in the name of commerce--in the name of civilization\nand of religion.\n\nOur fathers knew the history of caste. They knew that in the despotisms\nof the old world it was a disgrace to be useful. They knew that a\nmechanic was esteemed as hardly the equal of a hound, and far below\na blooded horse. They knew that a nobleman held a son of labor in\ncontempt--that he had no rights the royal loafers were bound to respect.\n\nThe world has changed.\n\nThe other day there came shoemakers, potters, workers in wood and iron\nfrom Europe, and they were received in the city of New York as though\nthey had been princes. They had been sent by the great republic of\nFrance to examine into the arts and manufactures of the great republic\nof America. They looked a thousand times better to me than the Edward\nAlberts and Albert Edwards--the royal vermin, that live on the body\npolitic. And I would think much more of our government if it would fete\nand feast them, instead of wining and dining the imbeciles of a royal\nline.\n\nOur fathers devoted their lives and fortunes to the grand work of\nfounding a government for the protection of the rights of man. The\ntheological idea as to the source of political power had poisoned the\nweb and woof of every government in the world, and our fathers banished\nit from this continent forever.\n\nWhat we want to-day is what our fathers wrote down. They did not attain\nto their ideal; we approach it nearer, but have not reached it yet. We\nwant, not only the independence of a state, not only the independence of\na nation, but something far more glorious--the absolute independence of\nthe individual. That is what we want. I want it so that I, one of the\nchildren of Nature, can stand on an equality with the rest; that I can\nsay this is _my_ air, _my_ sunshine, _my_ earth, and I have a right\nto live, and hope, and aspire, and labor, and enjoy the fruit of that\nlabor, as much as any individual or any nation on the face of the globe.\n\nWe want every American to make to-day, on this hundredth anniversary, a\ndeclaration of individual independence. Let each man enjoy his liberty\nto the utmost--enjoy all he can; but be sure it is not at the expense\nof another. The French convention gave the best definition of liberty\nI have ever read: \"The liberty of one citizen ceases only where the\nliberty of another citizen commences.\" I know of no better definition. I\nask you to-day to make a declaration of individual independence. And\nif you are independent, be just. Allow everybody else to make his\ndeclaration of individual independence. Allow your wife, allow your\nhusband, allow your children to make theirs. Let everybody be absolutely\nfree and independent, knowing only the sacred obligation of honesty and\naffection. Let us be independent of party, independent of everybody and\neverything except our own consciences and our own brains. Do not belong\nto any clique. Have the clear title deeds in fee simple to yourselves,\nwithout any mortgage on the premises to anybody in the world.\n\nIt is a grand thing to be the owner of yourself. It is a grand thing to\nprotect the rights of others. It is a sublime thing to be free and just.\n\nOnly a few days ago I stood in Independence Hall--in that little room\nwhere was signed the immortal paper. A little room, like any other;\nand it did not seem possible that from that room went forth ideas,\nlike cherubim and seraphim, spreading their wings over a continent, and\ntouching, as with holy fire, the hearts of men.\n\nIn a few moments I was in the park, where are gathered the\naccomplishments of a century. Our fathers never dreamed of the things I\nsaw. There were hundreds of locomotives, with their nerves of steel and\nbreath of flame--every kind of machine, with whirling wheels and curious\ncogs and cranks, and the myriad thoughts of men that have been wrought\nin iron, brass and steel. And going out from one little building were\nwires in the air, stretching to every civilized nation, and they could\nsend a shining messenger in a moment to any part of the world, and it\nwould go sweeping under the waves of the sea with thoughts and words\nwithin its glowing heart. I saw all that had been achieved by this\nnation, and I wished that the signers of the Declaration--the soldiers\nof the revolution--could see what a century of freedom has produced.\nI wished they could see the fields we cultivate--the rivers we\nnavigate--the railroads running over the Alleghanies, far into what was\nthen the unknown forest--on over the broad prairies--on over the vast\nplains--away over the mountains of the West, to the Golden Gate of the\nPacific.\n\nAll this is the result of a hundred years of freedom.\n\nAre you not more than glad that in 1776 was announced the sublime\nprinciple that political power resides with the people? That our fathers\nthen made up their minds nevermore to be colonists and subjects, but\nthat they would be free and independent citizens of America?\n\nI will not name any of the grand men who fought for liberty. All should\nbe named, or none. I feel that the unknown soldier who was shot down\nwithout even his name being remembered--who was included only in a\nreport of \"a hundred killed,\" or \"a hundred missing,\" nobody knowing\neven the number that attached to his august corpse--is entitled to as\ndeep and heartfelt thanks as the titled leader who fell at the head of\nthe host.\n\nStanding here amid the sacred memories of the first, on the golden\nthreshold of the second, I ask, Will the second century be as grand\nas the first? I believe it will, because we are growing more and more\nhumane, I believe there is more human kindness, more real, sweet human\nsympathy, a greater desire to help one another, in the United States,\nthan in all the world besides.\n\nWe must progress. We are just at the commencement of invention. The\nsteam engine--the telegraph--these are but the toys with which science\nhas been amused. Wait; there will be grander things; there will be wider\nand higher culture--a grander standard of character, of literature, and\nart.\n\nWe have now half as many millions of people as we have years, and many\nof us will live until a hundred million stand beneath the flag. We are\ngetting more real solid sense. The school house is the finest building\nin the village. We are writing and reading more books; we are painting\nand buying more pictures; we are struggling more and more to get at\nthe philosophy of life, of things--trying more and more to answer\nthe questions of the eternal Sphinx. We are looking in every\ndirection--investigating; in short, we are thinking and working. Besides\nall this, I believe the people are nearer honest than ever before. A few\nyears ago we were willing to live upon the labor of four million slaves.\nWas that honest? At last, we have a national conscience. At last, we\nhave carried out the Declaration of Independence. Our fathers wrote\nit--we have accomplished it. The black man was a slave--we made him a\ncitizen. We found four million human beings in manacles, and now the\nhands of a race are held up in the free air without a chain.\n\nI have had the supreme pleasure of seeing a man--once a slave--sitting\nin the seat of his former master in the Congress of the United States.\nI have had that pleasure, and when I saw it my eyes were filled\nwith tears. I felt that we had carried out the Declaration of\nIndependence,--that we had given reality to it, and breathed the breath\nof life into its every word. I felt that our flag would float over and\nprotect the colored man and his little children--standing straight in\nthe sun, just the same as though he were white and worth a million.\nI would protect him more, because the rich white man could protect\nhimself.\n\nAll who stand beneath our banner are free. Ours is the only flag that\nhas in reality written upon it: Liberty, Fraternity, Equality--the three\ngrandest words in all the languages of men.\n\nLiberty: Give to every man the fruit of his own labor--the labor of his\nhands and of his brain.\n\nFraternity: Every man in the right is my brother.\n\nEquality: The rights of all are equal: Justice, poised and balanced in\neternal calm, will shake from the golden scales, in which are weighed\nthe acts of men, the very dust of prejudice and caste: No race, no\ncolor, no previous condition, can change the rights of men.\n\nThe Declaration of Independence has at last been carried out in letter\nand in spirit.\n\nThe second century will be grander than the first.\n\nFifty millions of people are celebrating this day. To-day, the black man\nlooks upon his child and says: The avenues to distinction are open to\nyou--upon your brow may fall the civic wreath--this day belongs to you.\n\nWe are celebrating the courage and wisdom of our fathers, and the glad\nshout of a free people, the anthem of a grand nation, commencing at the\nAtlantic, is following the sun to the Pacific, across a continent of\nhappy homes.\n\nWe are a great people. Three millions have increased to fifty--thirteen\nstates to thirty-eight. We have better homes, better clothes, better\nfood and more of it, and more of the conveniencies of life, than any\nother people upon the globe.\n\nThe farmers of our country live better than did the kings and princes\ntwo hundred years ago--and they have twice as much sense and heart.\nLiberty and labor have given us all. I want every person here to believe\nin the dignity of labor--to know that the respectable man is the useful\nman--the man who produces or helps others to produce something of value,\nwhether thought of the brain or work of the hand.\n\nI want you to go away with an eternal hatred in your breast of\ninjustice, of aristocracy, of caste, of the idea that one man has more\nrights than another because he has better clothes, more land, more\nmoney, because he owns a railroad, or is famous and in high position.\nRemember that all men have equal rights. Remember that the man who acts\nbest his part--who loves his friends the best--is most willing to\nhelp others--truest to the discharge of obligation--who has the best\nheart--the most feeling--the deepest sympathies--and who fiercely gives\nto others the rights that he claims for himself, is the best man. I am\nwilling to swear to this.\n\nWhat has made this country? I say again, liberty and labor. What would\nwe be without labor? I want every farmer, when plowing the rustling\ncorn of June--while mowing in the perfumed fields--to feel that he\nis adding to the wealth and glory of the United States. I want every\nmechanic--every man of toil, to know and feel that he is keeping the\ncars running, the telegraph wires in the air; that he is making the\nstatues and painting the pictures: that he is writing and printing the\nbooks; that he is helping to fill the world with honor, with happiness,\nwith love and law.\n\nOur country is founded upon the dignity of labor--upon the equality\nof man. Ours is the first real republic in the history of the world.\nBeneath our flag the people are free. We have retired the gods from\npolitics. We have found that man is the only source of political\npower, and that the governed should govern. We have disfranchised the\naristocrats of the air and have given one country to mankind.\n\n\n\n\n\nABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS.\n\n\n     To Plow  is  to  Pray--to  Plant is to Prophecy,\n     and the Harvest Answers and Fulfills.\n\n\nI AM not an old and experienced farmer, nor a tiller of the soil, nor\none of the hard-handed sons of labor. I imagine, however, that I know\nsomething about cultivating the soil, and getting happiness out of the\nground.\n\nI know enough to know that agriculture is the basis of all wealth,\nprosperity and luxury. I know that in a country where the tillers of the\nfields are free, everybody is free and ought to be prosperous. Happy\nis that country where those who cultivate the land own it Patriotism is\nborn in the woods and fields--by lakes and streams--by crags and plains.\n\nThe old way of farming was a great mistake. Everything was done the\nwrong way. It was all work and waste, weariness and want. They used\nto fence a hundred and sixty acres of land with a couple of dogs.\nEverything was left to the protection of the blessed trinity of chance,\naccident and mistake.\n\nWhen I was a farmer they used to haul wheat two hundred miles in wagons\nand sell it for thirty-five cents a bushel. They would bring home about\nthree hundred feet of lumber, two bunches of shingles, a barrel of salt,\nand a cook-stove that never would draw and never did bake.\n\nIn those blessed days the people lived on corn and bacon. Cooking was\nan unknown art. Eating was a necessity, not a pleasure. It was hard work\nfor the cook to keep on good terms even with hunger.\n\nWe had poor houses. The rain held the roofs in perfect contempt, and\nthe snow drifted joyfully on the floors and beds. They had no barns. The\nhorses were kept in rail pens surrounded with straw. Long before spring\nthe sides would be-eaten away and nothing but roofs would be left. Food\nis fuel. When the cattle were exposed to all the blasts of winter, it\ntook all the corn and oats that could be stuffed into them to prevent\nactual starvation.\n\nIn those times most farmers thought the best place for the pig-pen was\nimmediately in front of the house. There is nothing like sociability.\n\nWomen were supposed to know the art of making fires without fuel. The\nwood pile consisted, as a general thing, of one log upon which an axe or\ntwo had been worn out in vain. There was nothing to kindle a fire with.\nPickets were pulled from the garden fence, clap-boards taken from the\nhouse, and every stray plank was seized upon for kindling. Everything\nwas done in the hardest way. Everything about the farm was disagreeable.\nNothing was kept in order. Nothing was preserved. The wagons stood\nin the sun and rain, and the plows rusted in the fields. There was\nno leisure, no feeling that the work was done. It was all labor and\nweariness and vexation of spirit. The crops were destroyed by wandering\nherds, or they were put in too late, or too early, or they were blown\ndown, or caught by the frost, or devoured by bugs, or stung by flies,\nor eaten by worms, or carried away by birds, or dug up by gophers, or\nwashed away by floods, or dried up by the sun, or rotted in the stack,\nor heated in the crib, or they all run to vines, or tops, or straw, or\nsmut, or cobs. And when in spite of all these accidents that lie in wait\nbetween the plow and the reaper, they did succeed in raising a good crop\nand a high price was offered, then the roads would be impassable. And\nwhen the roads got good, then the prices went down. Everything worked\ntogether for evil.\n\nNearly every farmer's boy took an oath that he never would cultivate\nthe soil. The moment they arrived at the age of twenty-one they left\nthe desolate and dreary farms and rushed to the towns and cities. They\nwanted to be bookkeepers, doctors, merchants, railroad men, insurance\nagents, lawyers, even preachers, anything to avoid the drudgery of the\nfarm. Nearly every boy acquainted with the three R's--reading, writing,\nand arithmetic--imagined that he had altogether more education than\nought to be wasted in raising potatoes and corn. They made haste to get\ninto some other business. Those who stayed upon the farm envied those\nwho went away.\n\nA few years ago the times were prosperous, and the young men went to the\ncities to enjoy the fortunes that were waiting for them. They wanted to\nengage in something that promised quick returns. They built railways,\nestablished banks and insurance companies. They speculated in stocks\nin Wall Street, and gambled in grain at Chicago. They became rich.\nThey lived in palaces. They rode in carriages. They pitied their poor\nbrothers on the farms, and the poor brothers envied them.\n\nBut time has brought its revenge. The farmers have seen the railroad\npresident a bankrupt, and the road in the hands of a receiver. They have\nseen the bank president abscond, and the insurance company a wrecked and\nruined fraud. The only solvent people, as a class, the only independent\npeople, are the tillers of the soil.\n\nFarming must be made more attractive. The comforts of the town must be\nadded to the beauty of the fields. The sociability of the city must be\nrendered possible in the country.\n\nFarming has been made repulsive. The farmers have been unsociable and\ntheir homes have been lonely. They have been wasteful and careless. They\nhave not been proud of their business.\n\nIn the first place, farming ought to be reasonably profitable. The\nfarmers have not attended to their own interests. They have been robbed\nand plundered in a hundred ways.\n\nNo farmer can afford to raise corn and oats and hay to sell. He should\nsell horses, not oats; sheep, cattle and pork, not corn. He should make\nevery profit possible out of what he produces. So long as the farmers of\nIllinois ship their corn and oats, so long they will be poor,--just so\nlong will their farms be mortgaged to the insurance companies and banks\nof the east,--just so long will they do the work and others reap the\nbenefit,--just so long will they be poor, and the money lenders grow\nrich,--just so long will cunning avarice grasp and hold the net profits\nof honest toil. When the farmers of the west ship beef and pork instead\nof grain,--when we manufacture here,--when we cease paying tribute to\nothers, ours will be the most prosperous country in the world.\n\nAnother thing--It is just as cheap to raise a good as a poor breed of\ncattle. Scrubs will eat just as much as thoroughbreds. If you are not\nable to buy Durhams and Alderneys, you can raise the corn breed. By\n\"corn breed\" I mean the cattle that have, for several generations, had\nenough to eat, and have been treated with kindness. Every farmer who\nwill treat his cattle kindly, and feed them all they want, will, in a\nfew years, have blooded stock on his farm. All blooded stock has been\nproduced in this way. You can raise good cattle just as you can raise\ngood people. If you wish to raise a good boy you must give him plenty to\neat, and treat him with kindness. In this way, and in this way only, can\ngood cattle or good people be produced.\n\nAnother thing--You must beautify your homes.\n\nWhen I was a farmer it was not fashionable to set out trees, nor to\nplant vines.\n\nWhen you visited the farm you were not welcomed by flowers, and greeted\nby trees loaded with fruit. Yellow dogs came bounding over the tumbled\nfence like wild beasts. There is no sense--there is no profit in such a\nlife. It is not living. The farmers ought to beautify their homes. There\nshould be trees and grass and flowers and running vines. Everything\nshould be kept in order--gates should be on their hinges, and about all\nthere should be the pleasant air of thrift. In every house there should\nbe a bath-room. The bath is a civilizer, a refiner, a beautifier.\nWhen you come from the fields tired, covered with dust, nothing is so\nrefreshing. Above all things, keep clean. It is not necessary to be a\npig in order to raise one. In the cool of the evening, after a day in\nthe field, put on clean clothes, take a seat under the trees, 'mid the\nperfume of flowers, surrounded by your family, and you will know what it\nis to enjoy life like a gentleman.\n\nIn no part of the globe will farming pay better than in Illinois. You\nare in the best portion of the earth. From the Atlantic to the Pacific,\nthere is no such country as yours. The east is hard and stony; the\nsoil is stingy. The far west is a desert parched and barren, dreary and\ndesolate as perdition would be with the fires out. It is better to dig\nwheat and corn from the soil than gold. Only a few days ago I was where\nthey wrench the precious metals from the miserly clutch of the rocks.\nWhen I saw the mountains, treeless, shrub-less, flowerless, without even\na spire of grass, it seemed to me that gold had the same effect upon\nthe country that holds it, as upon the man who lives and labors only for\nthat. It affects the land as it does the man. It leaves the heart barren\nwithout a flower of kindness--without a blossom of pity.\n\nThe farmer in Illinois has the best soil--the greatest return for the\nleast labor--more leisure--more time for enjoyment than any other farmer\nin the world. His hard work ceases with autumn. He has the long winters\nin which to become acquainted with his family--with his neighbors--in\nwhich to read and keep abreast with the advanced thought of his day.\nHe has the time and means for self-culture. He has more time than the\nmechanic, the merchant or the professional man. If the farmer is not\nwell informed it is his own fault. Books are cheap, and every farmer can\nhave enough to give him the outline of every science, and an idea of all\nthat has been accomplished by man.\n\nIn many respects the farmer has the advantage of the mechanic. In our\ntime we have plenty of mechanics but no tradesmen. In the sub-division\nof labor we have a thousand men working upon different parts of the same\nthing, each taught in one particular branch, and in only one. We have,\nsay, in a shoe factory, hundreds of men, but not one shoemaker. It takes\nthem all, assisted by a great number of machines, to make a shoe. Each\ndoes a particular part, and not one of them knows the entire trade. The\nresult is that the moment the factory shuts down these men are out of\nemployment. Out of employment means out of bread--out of bread means\nfamine and horror. The mechanic of to-day has but little independence.\nHis prosperity often depends upon the good will of one man. He is liable\nto be discharged for a look, for a word. He lays by but little for his\ndeclining years. He is, at the best, the slave of capital.\n\nIt is a thousand times better to be a whole farmer than part of a\nmechanic. It is better to till the ground and work for yourself than\nto be hired by corporations. Every man should endeavor to belong to\nhimself.\n\nAbout seven hundred years ago, Kheyam, a Persian, said: \"Why should a\nman who possesses a piece of bread securing life for two days, and who\nhas a cup of water--why should such a man be commanded by another, and\nwhy should such a man serve another?\"\n\nYoung men should not be satisfied with a salary. Do not mortgage the\npossibilities of your future. Have the courage to take life as it comes,\nfeast or famine. Think of hunting a gold mine for a dollar a day, and\nthink of finding one for another man. How would you feel then?\n\nWe are lacking in true courage, when, for fear of the future, we take\nthe crusts and scraps and niggardly salaries of the present. I had\na thousand times rather have a farm and be independent, than to be\nPresident of the United States without independence, filled with doubt\nand trembling, feeling of the popular pulse, resorting to art and\nartifice, enquiring about the wind of opinion, and succeeding at last in\nlosing my self respect without gaining the respect of others.\n\nMan needs more manliness, more real independence. We must take care of\nourselves. This we can do by labor, and in this way we can preserve our\nindependence. We should try and choose that business or profession the\npursuit of which will give us the most happiness. Happiness is wealth.\nWe can be happy without being rich--without holding office--without\nbeing famous. I am not sure that we can be happy with wealth, with\noffice, or with fame.\n\nThere is a quiet about the life of a farmer, and the hope of a\nserene old age, that no other business or profession can promise. A\nprofessional man is doomed sometime to feel that his powers are waning.\nHe is doomed to see younger and stronger men pass him in the race of\nlife. He looks forward to an old age of intellectual mediocrity. He will\nbe last where once he was the first. But the farmer goes, as it were,\ninto partnership with nature--\"he lives with trees and flowers--he\nbreathes the sweet air of the fields.\" There is no constant and frightful\nstrain upon his mind. His nights are filled with sleep and rest. He\nwatches his flocks and herds as they feed upon the green and sunny\nslopes. He hears the pleasant rain falling upon the waving corn, and the\ntrees he planted in youth rustle above him as he plants others for the\nchildren yet to be.\n\nOur country is filled with the idle and unemployed, and the great\nquestion asking for an answer is: What shall be done with these men?\nWhat shall these men do? To this there is but one answer: They must\ncultivate the soil. Farming must be rendered more attractive. Those who\nwork the land must have an honest pride in their business. They must\neducate their children to cultivate the soil. They must make farming\neasier, so that their children will not hate it--so that they will not\nhate it themselves. The boys must not be taught that tilling the ground\nis a curse and almost a disgrace. They must not suppose that education\nis thrown away upon them unless they become ministers, merchants,\nlawyers, doctors, or statesmen. It must be understood that education\ncan be used to advantage on a farm. We must get rid of the idea that a\nlittle learning unfits one for work. There is no real conflict between\nLatin and labor. There are hundreds of graduates of Yale and Harvard\nand other colleges, who are agents of sewing machines, solicitors for\ninsurance, clerks, copyists, in short, performing a hundred varieties of\nmenial service. They seem willing to do anything that is not regarded as\nwork--anything that can be done in a town, in the house, in an office,\nbut they avoid farming as they would a leprosy. Nearly every young man\neducated in this way is simply ruined. Such an education ought to be\ncalled ignorance. It is a thousand times better to have common sense\nwithout education, than education without the sense. Boys and girls\nshould be educated to help themselves. They should be taught that it is\ndisgraceful to be idle, and dishonorable to be useless.\n\nI say again, if you want more men and women on the farms, something must\nbe done to make farm life pleasant. One great difficulty is that the\nfarm is lonely. People write about the pleasures of solitude, but they\nare found only in books. He who lives long alone becomes insane. A\nhermit is a madman. Without friends and wife and child, there is nothing\nleft worth living for. The unsocial are the enemies of joy. They are\nfilled with egotism and envy, with vanity and hatred. People who live\nmuch alone become narrow and suspicious. They are apt to be the property\nof one idea. They begin to think there is no use in anything. They look\nupon the happiness of others as a kind of folly. They hate joyous folks,\nbecause, way down in their hearts, they envy them.\n\nIn our country, farm-life is too lonely. The farms are large, and\nneighbors are too far apart. In these days, when the roads are filled\nwith \"tramps,\" the wives and children need protection. When the farmer\nleaves home and goes to some distant field to work, a shadow of fear is\nupon his heart all day, and a like shadow rests upon all at home.\n\nIn the early settlement of our country the pioneer was forced to take\nhis family, his axe, his dog and his gun, and go into the far wild\nforest and build his cabin miles and miles from any neighbor. He saw the\nsmoke from his hearth go up alone in all the wide and lonely sky.\n\nBut this necessity has passed away, and now, instead of living so far\napart upon the lonely farms, you should live in villages. With the\nimproved machinery which you have--with your generous soil--with\nyour markets and means of transportation, you can now afford to live\ntogether.\n\nIt is not necessary in this age of the world for the farmer to rise in\nthe middle of the night and begin his work. This getting up so early in\nthe morning is a relic of barbarism. It has made hundreds and thousands\nof young men curse the business. There is no need of getting up at three\nor four o'clock in the winter morning. The farmer who persists in doing\nit and persists in dragging his wife and children from their beds ought\nto be visited by a missionary. It is time enough to rise after the sun\nhas set the example. For what purpose do you get up? To feed the cattle?\nWhy not feed them more the night before? It is a waste of life. In the\nold times they used to get up about three o'clock in the morning, and go\nto work long before the sun had risen with \"healing upon his wings,\" and\nas a just punishment they all had the ague; and they ought to have it\nnow. The man who cannot get a living upon Illinois soil without rising\nbefore daylight ought to starve. Eight hours a day is enough for any\nfarmer to work except in harvest time. When you rise at four and work\ntill dark what is life worth? Of what use are all the improvements in\nfarming? Of what use is all the improved machinery unless it tends to\ngive the farmer a little more leisure? What is harvesting now, compared\nwith what it was in the old time? Think of the days of reaping, of\ncradling, of raking and binding and mowing. Think of threshing with\nthe flail and winnowing with the wind. And now think of the reapers and\nmowers, the binders and threshing machines, the plows and cultivators,\nupon which the farmer rides protected from the sun. If, with all these\nadvantages, you cannot get a living without rising in the middle of the\nnight, go into some other business. You should not rob your families of\nsleep. Sleep is the best medicine in the world. It is the best doctor\nupon the earth. There is no such thing as health without plenty of\nsleep. Sleep until you are thoroughly rested and restored. When you\nwork, work; and when you get through take a good, long, and refreshing\nrest.\n\nYou should live in villages, so that you can have the benefits of social\nlife. You can have a reading-room--you can take the best papers and\nmagazines--you can have plenty of books, and each one can have the\nbenefit of them all. Some of the young men and women can cultivate\nmusic. You can have social gatherings--you can-learn from each\nother--you can discuss all topics of interest, and in this way you can\nmake farming a delightful business. You must keep up with the age.\nThe way to make farming respectable is for farmers to become really\nintelligent. They must live intelligent and happy lives. They must know\nsomething of books and something of what is going on in the world.\nThey must not be satisfied with knowing something of the affairs of a\nneighborhood and nothing about the rest of the earth. The business must\nbe made attractive, and it never can be until the farmer has prosperity,\nintelligence and leisure.\n\nAnother thing--I am a believer in fashion. It is the duty of every woman\nto make herself as beautiful and attractive as she possibly can.\n\n\"Handsome is as handsome does,\" but she is much handsomer if well\ndressed. Every man should look his very best. I am a believer in good\nclothes. The time never ought to come in this country when you can tell\na farmer's wife or daughter simply by the garments she wears. I say to\nevery girl and woman, no matter what the material of your dress may be,\nno matter how cheap and coarse it is, cut it and make it in the fashion.\nI believe in jewelry. Some people look upon it as barbaric, but in my\njudgment, wearing jewelry is the first evidence the barbarian gives of\na wish to be civilized. To adorn ourselves seems to be a part of our\nnature, and this desire seems to be everywhere and in everything. I\nhave sometimes thought that the desire for beauty covers the earth with\nflowers. It is this desire that paints the wings of moths, tints the\nchamber of the shell, and gives the bird its plumage and its song. Oh\ndaughters and wives, if you would be loved, adorn yourselves--if you\nwould be adored, be beautiful! There is another fault common with the\nfarmers of our country--they want too much land. You cannot, at present,\nwhen taxes are high, afford to own land that you do not cultivate. Sell\nit and let others make farms and homes. In this way what you keep will\nbe enhanced in value. Farmers ought to own the land they cultivate, and\ncultivate what they own. Renters can hardly be called farmers. There can\nbe no such thing in the highest sense as a home unless you own it.\nThere must be an incentive to plant trees, to beautify the grounds,\nto preserve and improve. It elevates a man to own a home. It gives a\ncertain independence, a force of character that is obtained in no other\nway. A man without a home feels like a passenger. There is in such a man\na little of the vagrant. Homes make patriots. He who has sat by his own\nfireside with wife and children will defend it. When he hears the word\ncountry pronounced, he thinks of his home.\n\nFew men have been patriotic enough to shoulder a musket in defence of a\nboarding house.\n\nThe prosperity and glory of our country depend upon the number of our\npeople who are the owners of homes. Around the fireside cluster the\nprivate and the public virtues of our race. Raise your sons to be\nindependent through labor--to pursue some business for themselves\nand upon their own account--to be self-reliant--to act upon their own\nresponsibility, and to take the consequences like men. Teach them above\nall things to be good, true and tender husbands--winners of love and\nbuilders of homes.\n\nA great many farmers seem to think that they are the only laborers\nin the world. This is a very foolish thing. Farmers cannot get along\nwithout the mechanic. You are not independent of the man of genius.\nYour prosperity depends upon the inventor. The world advances by the\nassistance of all laborers; and all labor is under obligations to the\ninventions of genius. The inventor does as much for agriculture as he\nwho tills the soil. All laboring men should be brothers. You are in\npartnership with the mechanics who make your reapers, your mowers and\nyour plows; and you should take into your granges all the men who make\ntheir living by honest labor. The laboring people should unite and\nshould protect themselves against all idlers. You can divide mankind\ninto two classes: the laborers and the idlers, the supporters and the\nsupported, the honest and the dishonest. Every man is dishonest who\nlives upon the unpaid labor of others, no matter if he occupies a\nthrone. All laborers should be brothers. The laborers should have equal\nrights before the world and before the law. And I want every farmer to\nconsider every man who labors either with hand or brain as his brother.\nUntil genius and labor formed a partnership there was no such thing\nas prosperity among men. Every reaper and mower, every agricultural\nimplement, has elevated the work of the farmer, and his vocation grows\ngrander with every invention. In the olden time the agriculturist\nwas ignorant; he knew nothing of machinery, he was the slave of\nsuperstition. He was always trying to appease some imaginary power by\nfasting and prayer. He supposed that some being actuated by malice, sent\nthe untimely frost, or swept away with the wild wind his rude abode.\nTo him the seasons were mysteries. The thunder told him of an enraged\ngod--the barren fields of the vengeance of heaven. The tiller of the\nsoil lived in perpetual and abject fear. He knew nothing of mechanics,\nnothing of order, nothing of law, nothing of cause and effect. He was\na superstitious savage. He invented prayers instead of plows, creeds\ninstead of reapers and mowers. He was unable to devote all his time to\nthe gods, and so he hired others to assist him, and for their influence\nwith the gentlemen supposed to control the weather, he gave one-tenth of\nall he could produce.\n\nThe farmer has been elevated through science and he should not forget\nthe debt he owes to the mechanic, to the inventor, to the thinker. He\nshould remember that all laborers belong to the same grand family--that\nthey are the real kings and queens, the only true nobility.\n\nAnother idea entertained by most farmers is that they are in some\nmysterious way oppressed by every other kind of business--that they are\ndevoured by monopolies, especially by railroads.\n\nOf course, the railroads are indebted to the farmers for their\nprosperity, and the farmers are indebted to the railroads. Without them\nIllinois would be almost worthless.\n\nA few years ago you endeavored to regulate the charges of railroad\ncompanies. The principal complaint you had was that they charged too\nmuch for the transportation of corn and other cereals to the East. You\nshould remember that all freights are paid by the consumer; and that\nit made little difference to you what the railroad charged for\ntransportation to the East, as that transportation had to be paid by\nthe consumers of the grain. You were really interested in transportation\nfrom the East to the West and in local freights. The result is that\nwhile you have put down through freights you have not succeeded so well\nin local freights. The exact opposite should be the policy of Illinois.\nPut down local freights; put them down, if you can, to the lowest\npossible figure, and let through rates take care of themselves. If all\nthe corn raised in Illinois could be transported to New York absolutely\nfree, it would enhance but little the price that you would receive.\nWhat we want is the lowest possible local rate. Instead of this you have\nsimply succeeded in helping the East at the expense of the West. The\nrailroads are your friends. They are your partners. They can prosper\nonly where the country through which they run prospers. All intelligent\nrailroad men know this. They know that present robbery is future\nbankruptcy. They know that the interest of the farmer and of the\nrailroad is the same. We must have railroads. What can we do without\nthem?\n\nWhen we had no railroads, we drew, as I said before, our grain two\nhundred miles to market.\n\nIn those days the farmers did not stop at hotels. They slept under their\nwagons--took with them their food--fried their own bacon, made their\ncoffee, and ate their meals in the snow and rain. Those were the days\nwhen they received ten cents a bushel for corn--when they sold four\nbushels of potatoes for a quarter--thirty-three dozen eggs for a dollar,\nand a hundred pounds of pork for a dollar and a half.\n\nWhat has made the difference?\n\nThe railroads came to your door and they brought with them the markets\nof the world. They brought New York and Liverpool and London into\nIllinois, and the state has been clothed with prosperity as with a\nmantle. It is the interest of the farmer to protect every great interest\nin the state. You should feel proud that Illinois has more railroads\nthan any other state in this Union. Her main tracks and side tracks\nwould furnish iron enough to belt the globe. In Illinois there are\nten thousand miles of railways. In these iron highways more than three\nhundred million dollars have been invested--a sum equal to ten times\nthe original cost of all the land in the state. To make war upon the\nrailroads is a short-sighted and suicidal policy. They should be treated\nfairly and should be taxed by the same standard that farms are taxed,\nand in no other way. If we wish to prosper we must act together, and we\nmust see to it that every form of labor is protected.\n\nThere has been a long period of depression in all business. The farmers\nhave suffered least of all. Your land is just as rich and productive as\never. Prices have been reasonable. The towns and cities have suffered.\nStocks and bonds have shrunk from par to worthless paper. Princes have\nbecome paupers, and bankers, merchants and millionaires have passed into\nthe oblivion of bankruptcy. The period of depression is slowly passing\naway, and we are entering upon better times.\n\nA great many people say that a scarcity of money is our only difficulty.\nIn my opinion we have money enough, but we lack confidence in each other\nand in the future.\n\nThere has been so much dishonesty, there have been so many failures,\nthat the people are afraid to trust anybody. There is plenty of money,\nbut there seems to be a scarcity of business. If you were to go to the\nowner of a ferry, and, upon seeing his boat lying high and dry on the\nshore, should say, \"There is a superabundance of ferryboat,\" he would\nprobably reply, \"No, but there is a scarcity of water.\" So with us\nthere is not a scarcity of money, but there is a scarcity of business.\nAnd this scarcity springs from lack of confidence in one another. So\nmany presidents of savings banks, even those belonging to the Young\nMen's Christian Association, run off with the funds; so many railroad\nand insurance companies are in the hands of receivers; there is so much\nbankruptcy on every hand, that all capital is held in the nervous clutch\nof fear. Slowly, but surely we are coming back to honest methods in\nbusiness. Confidence will return, and then enterprise will unlock the\nsafe and money will again circulate as of yore; the dollars will leave\ntheir hiding places and every one will be seeking investment.\n\nFor my part, I do not ask any interference on the part of the government\nexcept to undo the wrong it has done. I do not ask that money be made\nout of nothing. I do not ask for the prosperity born of paper. But I do\nask for the remonetization of silver. Silver was demonetized by fraud.\nIt was an imposition upon every solvent man; a fraud upon every honest\ndebtor in the United States. It assassinated labor. It was done in the\ninterest of avarice and greed, and should be undone by honest men.\n\nThe farmers should vote only for such men as are able and willing to\nguard and advance the interests of labor. We should know better than\nto vote for men who will deliberately put a tariff of three dollars\na thousand upon Canada lumber, when every farmer in Illinois is a\npurchaser of lumber. People who live upon the prairies ought to vote for\ncheap lumber. We should protect ourselves. We ought to have intelligence\nenough to know what we want and how to get it. The real laboring men of\nthis country can succeed if they are united. By laboring men, I do not\nmean only the farmers. I mean all who contribute in some way to the\ngeneral welfare. They should forget prejudices and party names, and\nremember only the best interests of the people. Let us see if we cannot,\nin Illinois, protect every department of industry. Let us see if all\nproperty cannot be protected alike and taxed alike, whether owned by\nindividuals or corporations.\n\nWhere industry creates and justice protects, prosperity dwells.\n\nLet me tell you something more about Illinois: We have fifty-six\nthousand square miles of land--nearly thirty-six million acres. Upon\nthese plains we can raise enough to feed and clothe twenty million\npeople. Beneath these prairies were hidden millions of ages ago, by\nthat old miser, the sun, thirty-six thousand square miles of coal. The\naggregate thickness of these veins is at least fifteen feet. Think of a\ncolumn of coal one mile square and one hundred miles high! All this\ncame from the sun. What a sunbeam such a column would be! Think of the\nengines and machines this coal will run and turn and whirl! Think of\nall this force, willed and left to us by the dead morning of the world!\nThink of the firesides of the future around which will sit the fathers,\nmothers and children of the years to be! Think of the sweet and happy\nfaces, the loving and tender eyes that will glow and gleam in the sacred\nlight of all these flames!\n\nWe have the best country in the world, and Illinois is the best state\nin that country. Is there any reason that our farmers should not be\nprosperous and happy men? They have every advantage, and within their\nreach are all the comforts and conveniences of life.\n\nDo not get the land fever and think you must buy all that joins you. Get\nout of debt as soon as you possibly can. A mortgage casts a shadow on\nthe sunniest field. There is no business under the sun that can pay ten\nper cent.\n\nAinsworth R. Spofford gives the following facts about interest: \"One\ndollar loaned for one hundred years at six per cent., with the interest\ncollected annually and added to the principal, will amount to three\nhundred and forty dollars. At eight per cent, it amounts to two thousand\ntwo hundred and three dollars. At three per cent, it amounts only to\nnineteen dollars and twenty-five cents. At ten per cent, it is thirteen\nthousand eight hundred and nine dollars, or about seven hundred times\nas much. At twelve per cent, it amounts to eighty-four thousand and\nseventy-five dollars, or more than four thousand times as much. At\neighteen per cent, it amounts to fifteen million one hundred and\nforty-five thousand and seven dollars. At twenty-four per cent, (which\nwe sometimes hear talked of) it reaches the enormous sum of two billion\nfive hundred and fifty-one million seven hundred and ninety-nine\nthousand four hundred and four dollars.\"\n\nOne dollar at compound interest, at twenty-four per cent., for one\nhundred years, would produce a sum equal to our national debt.\n\nInterest eats night and day, and the more it eats the hungrier it grows.\nThe farmer in debt, lying awake at night, can, if he listens, hear it\ngnaw. If he owes nothing, he can hear his corn grow. Get out of debt\nas soon as you possibly can. You have supported idle avarice and lazy\neconomy long enough.\n\nAbove all let every farmer treat his wife and children with infinite\nkindness. Give your sons and daughters every advantage within your\npower. In the air of kindness they will grow about you like flowers.\nThey will fill your homes with sunshine and all your years with joy.\nDo not try to rule by force. A blow from a parent leaves a scar on the\nsoul. I should feel ashamed to die surrounded by children I had whipped.\nThink of feeling upon your dying lips the kiss of a child you had\nstruck.\n\nSee to it that your wife has every convenience. Make her life worth\nliving. Never allow her to become a servant. Wives, weary and worn,\nmothers, wrinkled and bent before their time, fill homes with grief\nand shame. If you are not able to hire help for your wives, help them\nyourselves. See that they have the best utensils to work with.\n\nWomen cannot create things by magic. Have plenty of wood and coal--good\ncellars and plenty in them. Have cisterns, so that you can have plenty\nof rain water for washing.' Do not rely on a barrel and a board. When\nthe rain comes the board will be lost or the hoops will be off the\nbarrel.\n\nFarmers should live like princes. Eat the best things you raise and sell\nthe rest. Have good things to cook and good things to cook with. Of all\npeople in our country, you should live the best. Throw your miserable\nlittle stoves out of the window. Get ranges, and have them so built that\nyour wife need not burn her face off to get you a breakfast. Do not make\nher cook in a kitchen hot as the orthodox perdition. The beef, not the\ncook, should be roasted. It is just as easy to have things convenient\nand right as to have them any other way.\n\nCooking is one of the fine arts. Give your wives and daughters things to\ncook, and things to cook with, and they will soon become most excellent\ncooks. Good cooking is the basis of civilization. The man whose arteries\nand veins are filled with rich blood made of good and well cooked food,\nhas pluck, courage, endurance and and noble impulses. The inventor of\na good soup did more for his race than the maker of any creed. The\ndoctrines of total depravity and endless punishment were born of bad\ncooking and dyspepsia. Remember that your wife should have the things to\ncook with.\n\nIn the good old days there would be eleven children in the family and\nonly one skillet. Everything was broken or cracked or loaned or lost.\n\nThere ought to be a law making it a crime, punishable by imprisonment,\nto fry beefsteak. Broil it; it is just as easy, and when broiled it is\ndelicious. Fried beefsteak is not fit for a wild beast. You can broil\neven on a stove. Shut the front damper--open the back one--then takeoff\na griddle. There will then be a draft downwards through this opening.\nPut on your steak, using a wire broiler, and not a particle of smoke\nwill touch it, for the reason that the smoke goes down. If you try to\nbroil it with the front damper open, the smoke will rise. For broiling,\ncoal, even soft coal, makes a better fire than wood.\n\nThere is no reason why farmers should not have fresh meat all the year\nround. There is certainly no sense in stuffing yourself full of salt\nmeat every morning, and making a well or a cistern of your stomach for\nthe rest of the day. Every farmer should have an ice house. Upon or near\nevery farm is some stream from which plenty of ice can be obtained, and\nthe long summer days made delightful. Dr. Draper, one of the world's\ngreatest scientists, says that ice water is healthy, and that it has\ndone away with many of the low forms of fever in the great cities. Ice\nhas become one of the necessaries of civilized life, and without it\nthere is very little comfort.\n\nMake your homes pleasant. Have your houses warm and comfortable for the\nwinter. Do not build a story-and-a-half house. The half story is simply\nan oven in which, during the summer, you will bake every night, and feel\nin the morning as though only the rind of yourself was left.\n\nDecorate your rooms, even if you do so with cheap engravings. The\ncheapest are far better than none. Have books--have papers, and read\nthem. You have more leisure than the dwellers in cities. Beautify your\ngrounds with plants and flowers and vines. Have good gardens. Remember\nthat everything of beauty tends to the elevation of man. Every little\nmorning-glory whose purple bosom is thrilled with the amorous kisses of\nthe sun, tends to put a blossom in your heart. Do not judge of the\nvalue of everything by the market reports. Every flower about a house\ncertifies to the refinement of somebody. Every vine climbing and\nblossoming, tells of love and joy.\n\nMake your houses comfortable. Do not huddle together in a little room\naround a red-hot stove, with every window fastened down. Do not live in\nthis poisoned atmosphere, and then, when one of your children dies; put\na piece in the papers commencing with, \"Whereas, it has pleased divine\nProvidence to remove from our midst--.\" Have plenty of air, and plenty\nof warmth. Comfort is health. Do not imagine anything is unhealthy\nsimply because it is pleasant. That is an old and foolish idea.\n\nLet your children sleep. Do not drag them from their beds in the\ndarkness of night. Do not compel them to associate all that is tiresome,\nirksome and dreadful with cultivating the soil. In this way you bring\nfarming into hatred and disrepute. Treat your children with infinite\nkindness--treat them as equals. There is no happiness in a home not\nfilled with love. Where the husband hates his wife--where the wife hates\nthe husband; where children hate their parents and each other--there is\na hell upon earth.\n\nThere is no reason why farmers should not be the kindest and most\ncultivated of men. There is nothing in plowing the fields to make men\ncross, cruel and crabbed. To look upon the sunny slopes covered with\ndaisies does not tend to make men unjust. Whoever labors for the\nhappiness of those he loves, elevates himself, no matter whether he\nworks in the dark and dreary shops, or in the perfumed fields. To work\nfor others is, in reality, the only way in which a man can work for\nhimself. Selfishness is ignorance. Speculators cannot make unless\nsomebody loses. In the realm of speculation, every success has at least\none victim. The harvest reaped by the farmer benefits all and injures\nnone. For him to succeed, it is not necessary that some one should fail.\nThe same is true of all producers--of all laborers.\n\nI can imagine no condition that carries with it it such a promise of joy\nas that of the farmer in the early winter. He has his cellar filled--he\nhas made every preparation for the days of snow and storm--he\nlooks forward to three months of ease and rest; to three months of\nfireside-content; three months with wife and children; three months of\nlong, delightful evenings; three months of home; three months of solid\ncomfort.\n\nWhen the life of the farmer is such as I have described, the cities and\ntowns will not be filled with want--the streets will not be crowded with\nwrecked rogues, broken bankers, and bankrupt speculators. The fields\nwill be tilled, and country villages, almost hidden by trees and vines\nand flowers, filled with industrious and happy people, will nestle in\nevery vale and gleam like gems on every plain.\n\nThe idea must be done away with that there is something intellectually\ndegrading in cultivating the soil. Nothing can be nobler than to be\nuseful. Idleness should not be respectable.\n\nIf farmers will cultivate well, and without waste; if they will so build\nthat their houses will be warm in winter and cool in summer; if they\nwill plant trees and beautify their homes; if they will occupy their\nleisure in reading, in thinking, in improving their minds and in\ndevising ways and means to make their business profitable and pleasant;\nif they will live nearer together and cultivate sociability; if they\nwill come together often; if they will have reading rooms and cultivate\nmusic; if they will have bath-rooms, ice-houses and good gardens; if\ntheir wives can have an easy time; if their sons and daughters can have\nan opportunity to keep in line with the thoughts and discoveries of\nthe world; if the nights can be taken for sleep and the evenings for\nenjoyment, everybody will be in love with the fields. Happiness should\nbe the object of life, and if life on the farm can be made really happy,\nthe children will grow up in love with the meadows, the streams, the\nwoods and the old home. Around the farm will cling and cluster the happy\nmemories of the delightful years.\n\nRemember, I pray you, that you are in partnership with all labor--that\nyou should join hands with all the sons and daughters of toil, and that\nall who work belong to the same noble family.\n\nFor my part, I envy the man who has lived on the same broad acres from\nhis boyhood, who cultivates the fields where in youth he played, and\nlives where his father lived and died.\n\nI can imagine no sweeter way to end one's life than in the quiet of the\ncountry, out of the mad race for money, place and power--far from the\ndemands of business--out of the dusty highway where fools struggle and\nstrive for the hollow praise of other fools.\n\nSurrounded by pleasant fields and faithful friends, by those I have\nloved, I hope to end my days. And this I hope may be the lot of all who\nhear my voice. I hope that you, in the country, in houses covered\nwith vines and clothed with flowers, looking from the open window upon\nrustling fields of corn and wheat, over which will run the sunshine and\nthe shadow, surrounded by those whose lives you have filled with joy,\nwill pass away serenely as the Autumn dies.\n\n\n\n\n\nSPEECH AT CINCINNATI\n\nNOMINATING JAMES G. BLAINE FOR THE PRESIDENCY,\n\nJUNE, 1876.\n\n\nMASSACHUSETTS may be satisfied with the loyalty of Benjamin H. Bristow;\nso am I; but if any man nominated by this convention can not carry the\nState of Massachusetts, I am not satisfied with the loyalty of that\nState. If the nominee of this convention can not carry the grand old\nCommonwealth of Massachusetts by seventy-five thousand majority, I would\nadvise them to sell out Faneuil Hall as a Democratic headquarters. I\nwould advise them to take from Bunker Hill that old monument of glory.\n\nThe Republicans of the United States demand as their leader in the great\ncontest of 1876 a man of intelligence, a man of integrity, a man of\nwell-known and approved political opinions. They demand a statesman;\nthey demand a reformer after as well as before the election. They demand\na politician in the highest, broadest and best sense--a man of superb\nmoral courage. They demand a man acquainted with public affairs--with\nthe wants of the people; with not only the requirements of the hour,\nbut with the demands of the future. They demand a man broad enough to\ncomprehend the relations of this government to the other nations of\nthe earth. They demand a man well versed in the powers, duties, and\nprerogatives of each and every department of this government. They\ndemand a man who will sacredly preserve the financial honor of the\nUnited States; one who knows enough to know that the national debt must\nbe paid through the prosperity of this people; one who knows enough to\nknow that all the financial theories in the world cannot redeem a single\ndollar; one who knows enough to know that all the money must be made,\nnot by law, but by labor; one who knows enough to know that the people\nof the United States have the industry to make the money, and the honor\nto pay it over just as fast as they make it.\n\nThe Republicans of the United States demand a man who knows that\nprosperity and resumption, when they come, must come together; that\nwhen they come, they will come hand in hand through the golden harvest\nfields; hand in hand by the whirling spindles and the turning wheels;\nhand in hand past the open furnace doors; hand in hand by the flaming\nforges; hand in hand by the chimneys filled with eager fire, greeted and\ngrasped by the countless sons of toil.\n\nThis money has to be dug out of the earth. You can not make it by\npassing resolutions in a political convention.\n\nThe Republicans of the United States want a man who knows that this\ngovernment should protect every citizen, at home and abroad; who knows\nthat any government that will not defend its defenders, and protect its\nprotectors, is a disgrace to the map of the world. They demand a man who\nbelieves in the eternal separation and divorcement of church and school.\nThey demand a man whose political reputation is spotless as a star;\nbut they do not demand that their candidate shall have a certificate of\nmoral character signed by a confederate congress. The man who has, in\nfull, heaped and rounded measure, all these splendid qualifications, is\nthe present grand and gallant leader of the Republican party--James G.\nBlaine.\n\nOur country, crowned with the vast and marvelous achievements of its\nfirst century, asks for a man worthy of the past, and prophetic of her\nfuture; asks for a man who has the audacity of genius; asks for a man\nwho is the grandest combination of heart, conscience and brain beneath\nher flag--such a man is James G. Blaine.\n\nFor the Republican host, led by this intrepid man, there can be no\ndefeat.\n\nThis is a grand year--a year filled with the recollections of the\nRevolution; filled with proud and tender memories of the past; with\nthe sacred legends of liberty--a year in which the sons of freedom will\ndrink from the fountains of enthusiasm; a year in which the people call\nfor a man who has preserved in Congress what our soldiers won upon\nthe field; a year in which they call for the man who has torn from the\nthroat of treason the tongue of slander--for the man who has snatched\nthe mask of Democracy from the hideous face of rebellion; for the man\nwho, like an intellectual athlete, has stood in the arena of debate and\nchallenged all comers, and who is still a total stranger to defeat.\n\nLike an armed warrior, like a plumed knight, James G. Blaine marched\ndown the halls of the American Congress and threw his shining lance full\nand fair against the brazen foreheads of the defamers of his country\nand the maligners of his honor. For the Republican party to desert this\ngallant leader now, is as though an army should desert their general\nupon the field of battle.\n\nJames G. Blaine is now and has been for years the bearer of the sacred\nstandard of the Republican party. I call it sacred, because no human\nbeing can stand beneath its folds without becoming and without remaining\nfree.\n\nGentlemen of the convention, in the name of the great Republic, the\nonly Republic that ever existed upon this earth; in the name of all her\ndefenders and of all her supporters; in the name of all her soldiers\nliving; in the name of all her soldiers dead upon the field of battle,\nand in the name of those who perished in the skeleton clutch of famine\nat Andersonville and Libby, whose sufferings he so vividly remembers,\nIllinois--Illinois nominates for the next President of this country,\nthat prince of parliamentarians--that leader of leaders--James G.\nBlaine.\n\n\n\n\n\n\"THE PAST RISES BEFORE ME LIKE A DREAM.\"\n\nEXTRACT FROM A SPEECH DELIVERED AT THE SOLDIERS' REUNION AT\nINDIANAPOLIS, SEPT. 21, 1876.\n\nTHE past rises before me like a dream. Again we are in the great\nstruggle for national life. We hear the sounds of preparation--the\nmusic of boisterous drums--the silver voices of heroic bugles. We see\nthousands of assemblages, and hear the appeals of orators; we see\nthe pale cheeks of women, and the flushed faces of men; and in those\nassemblages we see all the dead whose dust we have covered with flowers.\nWe lose sight of them no more. We are with them when they enlist in the\ngreat army of freedom. We see them part with those they love. Some are\nwalking for the last time in quiet, woody places, with the maidens they\nadore. We hear the whisperings and the sweet vows of eternal love as\nthey lingeringly part forever. Others are bending over cradles, kissing\nbabes that are asleep. Some are receiving the blessings of old men. Some\nare parting with mothers who hold them and press them to their\nhearts again and again, and say nothing. Kisses and tears, tears and\nkisses--divine mingling of agony and love! And some are talking with\nwives, and endeavoring with brave words, spoken in the old tones, to\ndrive from their hearts the awful fear. We see them part. We see the\nwife standing in the door with the babe in her arms--standing in the\nsunlight sobbing---at the turn of the road a hand waves--she answers by\nholding high in her loving arms the child. He is gone, and forever.\n\nWe see them all as they march proudly away under the flaunting flags,\nkeeping time to the grand, wild music of war--marching down the streets\nof the great cities--through the towns and across the prairies--down to\nthe fields of glory, to do and to die for the eternal right.\n\nWe go with them, one and all. We are by their side on all the gory\nfields--in all the hospitals of pain--on all the weary marches. We stand\nguard with them in the wild storm and under the quiet stars. We are with\nthem in ravines running with blood--in the furrows of old fields. We are\nwith them between contending hosts, unable to move, wild with thirst,\nthe life ebbing slowly away among the withered leaves. We see them\npierced by balls and torn with shells, in the trenches, by forts, and\nin the whirlwind of the charge, where men become iron, with nerves of\nsteel.\n\nWe are with them in the prisons of hatred and famine; but human speech\ncan never tell what they endured.\n\nWe are at home when the news comes that they are dead. We see the maiden\nin the shadow of her first sorrow. We see the silvered head of the old\nman bowed with the last grief.\n\nThe past rises before us, and we see four millions of human beings\ngoverned by the lash--we see them bound hand and foot--we hear the\nstrokes of cruel whips--we see the hounds tracking women through\ntangled swamps. We see babes sold from the breasts of mothers. Cruelty\nunspeakable! Outrage infinite!\n\nFour million bodies in chains--four million souls in fetters. All the\nsacred relations of wife, mother, father and child, trampled beneath\nthe brutal feet or might. And all this was done under our own beautiful\nbanner of the free. The past rises before us. We hear the roar and\nshriek of the bursting shell. The broken fetters fall.\n\nThese heroes died. We look. Instead of slaves we see men and women and\nchildren. The wand of progress touches the auction-block, the slave-pen,\nthe whipping-post, and we see homes and firesides and school-houses and\nbooks, and where all was want, and crime and cruelty, and fear we see\nthe faces of the free.\n\nThese heroes are dead. They died for liberty they died for us. They\nare at rest. They sleep in the land they made free, under the flag\nthey rendered stainless, under the solemn pines, the sad hemlocks, the\ntearful willows, and the embracing vines. They sleep beneath the shadows\nof the clouds, careless, alike of sunshine or of storm, each in the\nwindowless palace of Rest. Earth may run red with other wars--they are\nat peace. In the midst of battle, in the roar of conflict, they found\nthe serenity of death. I have one sentiment for soldiers living and\ndead: Cheers for the living; tears for the dead.\n\n\n\n\n\nTHE GRANT BANQUET\n\nAT THE PALMER HOUSE, CHICAGO, THURSDAY, NOV. 18th, 1879.\n\nTWELFTH TOAST:\n\n\n     The Volunteer Soldiers of the Union, whose valor and\n     patriotism saved the world \"a government of the people,\n     by the people, and for the PEOPLE.\"\n\n\nRESPONSE BY ROBERT G. INGERSOLL.\n\n\nWHEN the savagery of the lash, the barbarism of the chain, and the\ninsanity of secession confronted the civilization of our century, the\nquestion \"Will the great Republic defend itself?\" trembled on the lips\nof every lover of mankind.\n\nThe North, filled with intelligence and wealth--children of\nliberty--marshaled her hosts and asked only for a leader. From civil\nlife a man, silent, thoughtful, poised and calm, stepped forth, and\nwith the lips of victory voiced the Nation's first and last demand:\n\"Unconditional and immediate surrender.\" From that moment the end was\nknown. That utterance was the first real declaration of real war, and,\nin accordance with the dramatic unities of mighty events, the great\nsoldier who made it, received the final sword of the rebellion.\n\nThe soldiers of the Republic were not seekers after vulgar glory. They\nwere not animated by the hope of plunder or the love of conquest. They\nfought to preserve the homestead of liberty and that their children\nmight have peace. They were the defenders of humanity, the destroyers\nof prejudice, the breakers of chains, and in the name of the future they\nslew the monster of their time. They finished what the soldiers of the\nRevolution commenced. They re-lighted the torch that fell from their\naugust hands and filled the world again with light. They blotted\nfrom the statute-books laws that had been passed by hypocrites at\nthe instigation of robbers, and tore with indignant hands from the\nConstitution that infamous clause that made men the catchers of their\nfellow-men. They made it possible for judges to be just, for statesmen\nto be humane, and for politicians to be honest. They broke the shackles\nfrom the limbs of slaves, from the souls of masters, and from the\nNorthern brain. They kept our country on the map of the world, and our\nflag in heaven. They rolled the stone from the sepulchre of progress,\nand found therein two angels clad in shining garments--Nationality and\nLiberty.\n\nThe soldiers were the saviors of the Nation; they were the liberators of\nmen. In writing the Proclamation of Emancipation, Lincoln, greatest\nof our mighty dead, whose memory is as gentle as the summer air when\nreapers sing amid the gathered sheaves, copied with the pen what Grant\nand his brave comrades wrote with swords.\n\nGrander than the Greek, nobler than the Roman, the soldiers of the\nRepublic, with patriotism as shoreless as the air, battled for the\nrights of others, for the nobility of labor, fought that mothers might\nown their babes, that arrogant idleness should not scar the back of\npatient toil, and that our country should not be a many-headed monster\nmade of warring states, but a Nation, sovereign, great, and free.\n\nBlood was water, money was leaves, and life was only common air until\none flag floated over a Republic without a master and without a slave.\n\nAnd then was asked the question: \"Will a free people tax themselves to\npay a nation's debt?\"\n\nThe soldiers went home to their waiting wives, to their glad children,\nand to the girls they loved--they went back to the fields, the shops,\nand mines. They had not been demoralized. They had been ennobled.\nThey were as honest in peace as they had been brave in war. Mocking at\npoverty, laughing at reverses, they made a friend of toil. They\nsaid: \"We saved the Nation's life, and what is life without honor?\"\nThey-worked and wrought with all of labor's royal sons that every pledge\nthe Nation gave might be redeemed. And their great leader, having put a\nshining band of friendship--a girdle of clasped and happy hands--around\nthe globe, comes home and finds that every promise made in war has now\nthe ring and gleam of gold.\n\nThere is another question still:--Will all the wounds of war be healed?\nI answer, Yes. The Southern people must submit, not to the dictation of\nthe North, but to the Nation's will and to the verdict of mankind. They\nwere wrong, and the time will come when they will say that they are\nvictors who have been vanquished by the right. Freedom conquered them,\nand freedom will cultivate their fields, educate their children, weave\nfor them the robes of wealth, execute their laws, and fill their land\nwith happy homes.\n\nThe soldiers of the Union saved the South as well as North. They made us\na Nation. Their victory made us free and rendered tyranny in every other\nland as insecure as snow upon volcanoes' lips.\n\nAnd now let us drink to the volunteers--to those who sleep in unknown,\nsunken graves, whose names are only in the hearts of those they loved\nand left--of those who only hear in happy dreams the footsteps of\nreturn. Let us drink to those who died where lipless famine mocked at\nwant--to all the maimed whose scars give modesty a tongue--to all who\ndared and gave to chance the care and keeping of their lives:--to all\nthe living and to all the dead--to Sherman, to Sheridan, and to Grant,\nthe laureled soldiers of the world, and last, to Lincoln, whose loving\nlife, like a bow of peace, spans and arches all the clouds of war.\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRIBUTE TO THE Rev. ALEXANDER CLARK.\n\n\nUPON the grave of the Reverend Alexander Clark I wish to place one\nflower.\n\nUtterly destitute of cold dogmatic pride that often passes for the\nlove of God; without the arrogance of the \"elect\"--simple, free, and\nkind--this earnest man made me his friend by being mine. I forgot that\nhe was a Christian, and he seemed to forget that I was not, while each\nremembered that the other was a man.\n\nFrank, candid, and sincere, he practiced what he preached, and looked\nwith the holy eyes of charity upon the failings and mistakes of men. He\nbelieved in the power of kindness, and spanned with divine sympathy the\nhideous gulf that separates the fallen from the pure.\n\nGiving freely to others the rights that he claimed for himself, it never\noccurred to him that his God hated a brave and honest unbeliever. He\nremembered that even an infidel has rights that love respects; that\nhatred has no saving power, and that in order to be a Christian it is\nnot necessary to become less than a man. He knew that no one can be\nmaligned into kindness; that epithets cannot convince; that curses are\nnot arguments, and that the finger of scorn never points towards heaven.\nWith the generosity of an honest man, he accorded to all the fullest\nliberty of thought, knowing, as he did, that in the realm of mind a\nchain is but a curse.\n\nFor this man I entertained the profoundest respect. In spite of the\ntaunts and jeers of his brethren, he publicly proclaimed that he would\ntreat infidels with fairness and respect; that he would endeavor to\nconvince them by argument and win them with love. He insisted that the\nGod he worshipped loved the well-being even of an atheist. In this grand\nposition he stood almost alone. Tender, just, and loving where others\nwere harsh, vindictive, and cruel, he challenged the respect and\nadmiration of every honest man.\n\nA few more such clergymen might drive calumny from the lips of faith and\nrender the pulpit worthy of respect.\n\nThe heartiness and kindness with which this generous man treated me can\nnever be excelled. He admitted that I had not lost, and could not lose\na single right by the expression of my honest thought. Neither did he\nbelieve that a servant could win the respect of a generous master by\npersecuting and maligning those whom the master would willingly forgive.\n\nWhile this good man was living, his brethren blamed him for having\ntreated me with fairness. But, I trust, now that he has left the shore\ntouched by the mysterious sea that never yet has borne, on any wave, the\nimage of a homeward sail, this crime will be forgiven him by those who\nstill remain to preach the love of God.\n\nHis sympathies were not confined within the prison of a creed, but ran\nout and over the walls like vines, hiding the cruel rocks and rusted\nbars with leaf and flower. He could not echo with his heart the fiendish\nsentence of eternal fire. In spite of book and creed, he read \"between\nthe lines\" the words of tenderness and love, with promises for all the\nworld. Above, beyond the dogmas of his church--humane even to the verge\nof heresy--causing some to doubt his love of God because he failed to\nhate his unbelieving fellow-men, he labored for the welfare of mankind,\nand to his work gave up his life with all his heart.\n\nRobert G. Ingersoll.\n\nWashington, D. C,\n\nJuly 11, 1879\n\n\n\n\n\nA TRIBUTE TO EBON C. INGERSOLL,\n\nBY HIS BROTHER ROBERT.\n\nMAY 31, 1879\n\n     THE RECORD OF A GENEROUS LIFE RUNS LIKE A VINE AROUND THE\n     MEMORY OF OUR DEAD, AND EVERY SWEET, UNSELFISH ACT IS NOW A\n     PERFUMED FLOWER.\n\nDear Friends: I am going to do that which the dead oft promised he would\ndo for me.\n\nThe loved and loving brother, husband, father, friend, died where\nmanhood's morning almost touches noon, and while the shadows still were\nfalling toward the west.\n\nHe had not passed on life's highway the stone that marks the highest\npoint; but, being weary for a moment, he lay down by the wayside, and,\nusing his burden for a pillow, fell into that dreamless sleep that\nkisses down his eyelids still. While yet in love with life and raptured\nwith the world, he passed to silence and pathetic dust.\n\nYet, after all, it may be best, just in the happiest, sunniest hour\nof all the voyage, while eager winds are kissing every sail, to dash\nagainst the unseen rock, and in an instant hear the billows roar above a\nsunken ship. For whether in mid sea or 'mong the breakers of the farther\nshore, a wreck at last must mark the end of each and all. And every\nlife, no matter if its every hour is rich with love and every moment\njeweled with a joy, will, at its close, become a tragedy as sad and deep\nand dark as can be woven of the warp and woof of mystery and death.\n\nThis brave and tender man in every storm of life was oak and rock; but\nin the sunshine he was vine and flower. He was the friend of all heroic\nsouls. He climbed the heights, and left all superstitions far below,\nwhile on his forehead fell the golden dawning of the grander day.\n\nHe loved the beautiful, and was with color, form, and music touched to\ntears. He sided with the weak, the poor, and wronged, and lovingly\ngave alms. With loyal heart and with the purest hands he faithfully\ndischarged all public trusts.\n\nHe was a worshipper of liberty, a friend of the oppressed. A thousand\ntimes I have heard him quote these words: \"For Justice, all place a\ntemple, and all season, summer.\" He believed that happiness was the only\ngood, reason the only torch, justice the only worship, humanity the only\nreligion, and love the only priest. He added to the sum of human joy;\nand were every one to whom he did some loving service to bring a blossom\nto his grave, he would sleep to-night beneath a wilderness of flowers.\n\nLife is a narrow vale between the cold and barren peaks of two\neternities. We strive in vain to look beyond the heights. We cry aloud,\nand the only answer is the echo of our wailing cry. From the voiceless\nlips of the unreplying dead there comes no word; but in the night of\ndeath hope sees a star and listening love can hear the rustle of a wing.\n\nHe who sleeps here, when dying, mistaking the approach of death for the\nreturn of health, whispered with his latest breath, \"I am better now.\"\nLet us believe, in spite of doubts and dogmas, of fears and tears, that\nthese dear words are true of all the countless dead.\n\nAnd now, to you, who have been chosen, from among the many men he loved,\nto do the last sad office for the dead, we give his sacred dust.\n\nSpeech cannot contain our love. There was there is, no gentler,\nstronger, manlier man.","title":"The Ghosts, and Other Lectures","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":46951}