Religious Intolerance

About eight o'clock Colonel Ingersoll advanced to the front of the stage unattended. He alone occupied the stage. As he approached the footlights, a neat bouquet -- the offering of the Pittsburgh Liberal League -- was presented him by the president of the association. The lecturer quietly laid the flowers upon a table and with the announcement that he ought probably to say something concerning the Sabbath, began his eloquent oration:

"How anybody ever came to the conclusion that there was any God who demanded that you should feel sorrowful and miserable and bleak one-seventh of the time is beyond my comprehension. Neither can I conceive how they can say that one-seventh of the time is holy. That day is the most sacred day on which the most good has been done for mankind. Now, there was a time among the Jews when if a man violated the Sabbath they would kill him. They said God told them to do it. I think they were mistaken. If not, if any God did tell them to kill, then I think he was mistaken. I hope the time will come when every man can spend the Sabbath just as he pleases, provided he does not interfere with the happiness of others. I would fight just as earnestly that the Christian may go to church as that the infidel may have the right to spend the Sabbath as he chooses. Are the people who go to church the only good people? Are there not a great many bad people who go to church? Not a bank in Pittsburgh will lend a dollar to the man who belongs to the church, without security, quicker than the man who don't go to church. Now, I believe that all laws on the statute books should be enforced. I do not blame anybody in this town. I am perfectly willing that every preacher in this town should preach. They are employed to preach, and to preach a certain doctrine, and if they don't preach that doctrine they will be turned out. (Laughter.) I have no objection to that. But I want the same privilege to express my views, and what is the difference whether a man pays the day he goes in or pays for it the weeks before by subscription.

"What would the church people think if the theatrical people should attempt to suppress the churches? What harm would do to have an opera here to-night? It would elevate us more than to hear ten thousand sermons on the worm that never dies. (Laughter.) This is more practical wisdom in one of the plays of Shakespeare than in all the sacred books ever written. What wrong would there be to see one of those grand plays on Sunday? There was a time when the church would not allow you to cook on Sunday. You had to eat your victuals cold. There was a time when they thought the more miserable you feel the better God feels. (Laughter.) There are sixty odd thousand preachers in the United States. Some people regard them as a necessary evil; some as an unnecessary evil. There are sixty odd thousand churches in the United States; and it does seem to me that with all the wealth on their side; with all the good people on their side; with Providence on their side; with all these advantages they ought to let us at least have the right to speak our thoughts."

Col. Ingersoll next entered into his argument on the origin of religion, referring to the first impressions of the savage. Having enunciated these views, which have before been published in reports given in these columns of his lectures, the speaker continued:

"The history of the world shows me that the right has not always prevailed. When you see innocent men chained to the stake and flames licking their flesh, it is natural to ask, why does God permit this? If you see a man in prison with the chains eating into his flesh simply for loving God, you've got to ask why does not a just God interfere? You've got to meet this. If won't do to say that it will all come out for the best. That may do very well for God, but it's awful hard on the man. (Laughter.) Where was the God that permitted slavery for two hundred years in these United States? The history of the world shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing was done, man did it.

"But there was a time when there was a drought, and this tribe of savages with their false notions of religion said somebody had been wicked. Somebody had been lecturing on Sunday (Laughter.) Then the tribe hunted out the wicked man. They said you've got to stop. We cannot allow you to continue your wickedness, which brings punishment upon the whole of us. What is the reason they allow me to speaks to-night? Because the Christians are not as firm in their belief now as they were a thousand years ago. The lukewarmness and hypocrisy of Christians now permit me to speak to-night. If they felt as they did a thousand years ago they would kill me. So religious persecution was born of the instinct of self-defense.

"Is there any duty we owe to God? Can we help him? Can we add to his glory or happiness? They tell me this God is infinitely wise, I cannot add to his wisdom; infinitely happy -- I cannot add to his happiness. What can I do? Maybe he wants me to make prayers that won't be answered. I cannot see any relation that can exist between the finite and the infinite. I acknowledge that I am under obligations to my fellow man. We owe duties to our fellow man. And what? Simply to make them happy.

"The only good thing is happiness; and the only evil is misery or unhappiness. Only those things are right that tend to increase the happiness of man; only those things are wrong that tend to increase the misery of man. That is the basis of right and wrong. There never would have been the idea of wrong except that man can inflict suffering upon others. Utility, then, is the basis of the idea of right and wrong.

"The church tells us this world is a school to prepare us for another, that it is a place to build character. Well, if that is the only way character can be developed it is bad for children who die before they get any character. What would you think of a school-master who would kill half his pupils the first day?

"Now, I read the Bible, and I find that God so loved the world that He made up his mind to damn the most of us. (Laughter.) I have read this book, and what shall I say of it? I believe it is generally better to be honest. Now, I don't believe the Bible. Had I not better say so? They say that if you do your will regret it when you come to die. If that be true, I know a great many religious people who will have no cause to regret it -- they don't tell their honest convictions about the Bible. There are two great arguments of the church -- the great man argument and the death-bed. They say the religion of your fathers is good enough. Why should a father object to your inventing a better plow than he had? They say to me, do you know more than all the theologians dead? Being a perfectly modest man I say I think I do. Now we have come to the conclusion that every man has a right to think. Would God give a bird wings and make it a crime to fly? Would he give me brains and make it a crime to think? Any God that would damn one of his children for the expression of his honest thought wouldn't make a decent thief. When I read a book and don't believe it, I ought to say so. I will do so and take the consequences like a man.

"And so I object to paying for the support of any other man's belief. I am in favor of the taxation of all church property. If that property belongs to God, he is able to pay the tax. (Laughter.) If we exempt anything, let us exempt the home of the widow and orphan. (Applause).

A voice here interrupted the speaker.
Col. Ingersoll--What did the gentleman say?
A Voice -- O, he's drunk.
Col. Ingersoll -- I don't think any Christian ought to get drunk and come here to disturb us. (Laughter).

The speaker resumed.

The church has to-day $600,000,000 or $700,000,000 of property in this country. It must cost $2,000,000 a week, that is to say $500 a minute to run these churches. You give me this money and if I don't do more good with it than four times as many churches I'll resign. Let them make the churches attractive and they'll get more hearers. They will have less empty pews if they have less empty heads in the pulpit. (Laughter.) The time will come when the preacher will become a teacher.

Admitting that the Bible is the Book of God, is that His only good job? Will not a man be damned as quick for denying the equator as denying the Bible? Will he not be damned as quick for denying geology as denying the scheme of salvation? When the Bible was first written it was not believed. Had they known as much about science as we know now, that Bible would not have been written.

Col. Ingersoll next gave his views of the Puritans, declared they left Holland to escape persecution, and came here to persecute others. He referred to the persecutions heaped upon those of other religious belief by the Puritans, paid the Catholics the compliment to say that Maryland, which they ruled, was the first colony to enact a law tolerating religious views not held by themselves, and went on to explain that God was never mentioned in the Constitution of the United States because each colony had a different religious belief, and each sect preferred to have God not mentioned at all than to have another religious belief than their own recognized. "In 1776," said the speaker, "our forefathers retired God from politics. They said all power comes from the people. They kept God out of the Constitution and allowed each State to settle the question for itself."

The present laws of different States were next reviewed, so far as they relate to the prevention of infidels giving testimony and to religious intolerance in any way, and these features were all branded and discussed as a gigantic evil.

The lecture was attentively listened to by the immense audience from beginning to the end, and the speaker's most blasphemous flights were the most loudly applauded.

Hereafter

MY FRIENDS: I tell you to-night, as I have probably told many of you dozens of times, that the orthodox doctrine of eternal punishment in the hereafter is an infamous one! I have no respect for the man who preaches it, or pretends to you he believes it. Neither have I any respect for the man who will pollute the imagination of innocent childhood with that infamous lie! And I have no respect for the man who will deliberately add to the sorrows of this world with this terrible dogma; no respect for the man who endeavors to put that infinite cloud and shadow over the heart of humanity. I will be frank with you and say, I hate the doctrine; I despise it; I defy it; I loathe it-and what man of sense does not? (Applause.) The idea of a hell was born of revenge and brutality on the one side and arrant cowardice on the other. In my judgment the American people are too brave, too generous, too magnanimous, too humane to believe in that outrageous doctrine of eternal damnation. (applause.) For a great many years the learned intellects of Christendom have been examining into the religions of other countries and other ages, in the world-the religions of the myriads who have passed away. They examined into the religions of Egypt, the religions of Greece, that of Rome and the Scandinavian countries. In the presence of the ruins of those religions, the learned men of Christendom insisted that those religions were baseless, false and fraudulent. But they have all parsed away.

Now, while this examination was being made, the Christianity of our day applauded, and when the learned men got through with the religions of other countries, they turned their attention to our religion, and by the same methods, by the same mode of reasoning and the same arrangements that they used with the old religions they were overturning the religion of our day. How is that? Because every religion in this world is the work of man. Every book that was ever written was written by man. Man existed before books. If otherwise, we might reasonably admit that there was such a thing as a sacred Bible. (Applause.)

I wish to call your attention to another thing. Man never had an original idea, and he never will have one, except it be supplied to him by his surroundings. Nature gave man every idea that he ever had in the world; and nature will continue to give man his ideals as long as he exists. No man can conceive of anything, the hint of which he had not received from the surroundings. And there is nothing on this earth, coming from any other sphere whatever.

As I have before said, man has produced every religion in the world. Why is that? Because each generation sends forth the knowledge and belief of the people at the time it was made. Barbarians have produced barbarian religions, and always will produce them. They have produced and always will produce, ideas and belief in harmony with their surroundings, and all the religions of the past were produced by barbarians. We are making religions every day; that is to say we are constantly changing them, adapting them to our purposes, and the religion of to-day is not the religion of a few months or a year ago. Well, what changes these religions? Science does it; education does it; the growing heart of man does it. Some men have nothing else to do but produce religions; science is constantly changing them. If we are cursed with such barbarian religions to-day-for our religions are really barbarous-what will they be a hundred or a thousand years hence? (Applause)

But friends, we are making inroads upon orthodoxy that orthodox Christians are painfully aware of, and what think you will be left of their fearful doctrines fifty or a hundred years from to-night? What will become of their endless Hell-their doctrine of the future anguish of the soul; their doctrine of the eternal burning and never-ending gnashing of teeth. Man will discard the idea of much a future-because there is now a growing belief in the justice of a Supreme Being (Applause)

Do you not know that every religion in the world has declared every other religion afraid? Yes, we all know it. That is the time all religions tell the truth-each of the other. (Laughter.)

Now, do you want to know why this is? Suppose Mr Johnson should tell Mr. Jones that he saw a corpse rise from the grave and that when he first saw it, it was covered with loathsome worms, and that while he was looking at it, it was suddenly reclothed in healthy, beautiful flesh. And then, suppose Jones should say to Johnson, "Well, now, I saw that same thing myself. I was in a graveyard once, and I saw a dead man rise and walk away as if nothing had ever happened to him!" Johnson opens wide his eyes and says to Jones, "Jones, you are a confounded liar!" And Jones says to Johnson, "You are an unmitigated liar!" "No, I'm not; you lie yourself!" "No! I say you lie!" Each man knew the other lied, because each man knew he lied himself. Thus when a man says, "I was upon Mount Sinai for the benefit of my health, and there I met God, who said to me, 'Stand aside, you and let me drown these people'", and the other man says to him: "I was upon a mountain, and there I met the Supreme Brahma." And Moses steps in and says, "That is not true!" and contends that the other man never did see Brahma, and the other man swears that Moses never saw God; and each man just utters a deliberate falsehood, and immediately after speaks truth

Therefore, each religion has charged every other religion with having been an unmitigated fraud. Still, if any man had ever seen a miracle himself, he would be prepared to believe that another man had seen the same or a similar thing. Whenever a man claims to have been cognizant of, or to have seen a miracle, he either utters a falsehood, or he is an idiot. Truth relies upon the unerring course of the laws of nature, and upon reason (Applause)

Observe, we have a religion--that is, many people have. I make no pretensions to having a religion myself-possibly you do not. I believe in living for this beautiful world-in living for the present, today: living for this very hour, and while I do live to make everybody happy that I can I cannot afford to squander my short life-and what little talent I am blessed within studying up and projecting schemes to avoid that seething lake of fire and brimstone. Let the future take care of itself, and when I am required to pass over "onto the other side," I am ready and willing to stand my chances with you howling Christians.

We have in this country a religion which men have preached for about eighteen hundred years, and men have grown wicked just in proportion as their belief in that religion has grown strong; and just in proportion as they have ceased to believe in it, men have become just, humane and charitable. And if they believe in it to-night as they believed it for instance at the time of the immaculate Puritan fathers, I would not be permitted to talk here in the city of New York. It is from the coldness and infidelity of the churches that I get my right to preach, and I thank them for it, and I say it to their credit (Laughter)

As I have said, we have a religion. What is it? In the first place, they say this vast universe was created by a God I don't know, and you don't know, whether it was or not. Also, if it had not been for the first sin of Adam, they say there would never have been any Devil, there would have been no sin, and if no sin, no death. As for myself I am glad there is death in the world, for that gives me a chance (Laughter) Somebody has to die to give me room, and when my turn comes I am willing to let some one else take my place. But if there is a Being who gave me this life, I thank him from the bottom of my heart-because this life has been a joy and a pleasure to me. Further, because of this first sin of Adam, they say all men are consigned to eternal perdition! But, in order to save man from that frightful Hell of the hereafter, Christ came to this world and took upon himself flesh and in order that we might know the road to eternal salvation, He gave us a book called the Bible; and wherever that Bible has been read people have immediately commenced throttling each other; and wherever that Bible has been circulated they have invented Inquisitions and instruments of torture and commenced hating each other with all their hearts. Then we are told that this Bible is the foundation of civilization, but I say it is the foundation of Hell and damnation! and we never shall get rid of that dogma until we get rid of the idea that the book is inspired. Now, what does the Bible teach? I am not going to ask this preacher or that preacher what the Bible teaches; but the question is, "Ought a man to be sent to an eternal Hell for not believing this Bible to be the work of a merciful God?" A very few people read it now; perhaps they should read it, and perhaps not; if I wanted to believe it, I should never read a word of it-never look upon its pages. I would let it lie on its shelf until it rotted! Still, perhaps we ought to read it in order to see what is read in schools that our children might become charitable and good; to be read to our children that they may get ideas of mercy, charity, humanity and justice!
Oh, yes! Now read:
"I will make mine arrows drunk with blood and my sword shall devour flesh." Deut. xxiii. 42.

Very good for a merciful God! (Laughter.)
"That thy foot may be dipped in the blood of thine enemies, and the tongue of the dogs in the same. Psalms lxviii. 24.

Merciful Being! I will quote several more choice bits from this inspired book, although I have several times made use of them.

But the Lord thy God shall deliver them unto thee, and shall destroy them with a mighty destruction, until they be destroyed.

And he shall deliver their kings into thine hand, and thou shalt destroy their name from under heaven; there shall no man be able to stand before thee, until thou have destroyed them. Deut. vii. 23, 24.
And Joshua did unto them as the Lord made him; he houghed their horses, and burnt their chariots with fire.
And Joshua at that time turned back, and took Hazor, and smote the king thereof with the sword; for Hazor beforetime was the head of all those kingdoms.
And all the cities of those kings, and all the kings of them, did Joshua take, and smote them with the edge of the sword, and he utterly destroyed them, as Moses the servant of the Lord commanded.
And they smote all the souls that were therein with the edge of the sword, utterly destroying them; there was not any left to breathe; and he burnt Hazor with fire. (Do not forget that these things were done by the command of God!)
But as for the cities that stood still in their strength, Israel burnt none of them save Hazor only; that did Joshua burn. And all the spoil of these cities, and the cattle, the children of Israel took for a prey unto themselves; but every man they smote with the edge of the sword until they had destroyed them, neither left they any to breathe. (As the moral and Just God had commanded them!)
As the Lord commanded Moses his servant, so did Moses command Joshua, and so did Joshua; he left nothing undone of all that the Lord had commanded Joshua. So Joshua took all that land, the hills, and all the south country, and all the land of Goshen, and the valley, and the plain and mountain of Israel, and the valley of the same;
Even from the mount Halak, that goeth up to Seir, even unto Baalgad in the valley of Lebanon under Mount Hermon; and all their kings he took, and smote them, and slew them.
Joshua made war a long time on all those kings.
There was not a city that made peace with the children of Israel, save the Hivites, the inhabitants of Gibeon; all the others they took in battle.
So Joshua took the whole land according to all that the Lord said unto Moses; and Joshua gave it for an inheritance unto Israel according to their divisions by their tribes. And the land rested from war. Josh. xi. 7-23.
When thou comest nigh unto a city to fight against it, then proclaim peace unto it.
And it shall be, if it makes thee answer of peace, and open unto thee, then it shall be that all the people that is found therein shall be tributaries unto thee, and they shall serve thee.
And if it will make no peace with thee, but will make war against thee, then thou shalt besiege it.
And when the Lord thy God hath delivered it into thine hands, thou shalt smite every male thereof with the edge of the sword.
But the women and the little ones, and the cattle, and all that is in the city, even all the spoil thereof, shalt thou take unto thyself; and thou shalt eat the spoil of thine enemies which the Lord thy God hath given thee.
Thus shalt thou do unto all the cities which are very far off from thee, which are not of the cities of those nations.
But of the cities of those people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth.
But thou shalt utterly destroy them.
(Neither the old man nor the woman, nor the beautiful maiden, nor the sweet dimpled babe, smiling upon the lap of its mother.)
And he said unto them, Thus saith the Lord God of Israel (a merciful God, indeed). Put every man his sword by his side, and go in and out from gate to gate throughout the camp, and slay every man his brother, and every man his neighbor. Ex. xxii. 29.
(Now recollect these instructions were given to an army of evasion, and the people who were slayed were guilty of the crime of fighting for their homes and their firesides. Oh, most merciful God! The Old Testament is full of curses, vengeance, jealousy and hatred, and of barbarity and brutality. Now, do you for one moment believe that these words were written by the most merciful God? Don't pluck from the heart the sweet flower of piety and crush it by superstition. Do not believe that God ever ordered the murder of innocent women and helpless babes. Do not let this superstition turn your hearts into stone. When anything is said to have been written by the most merciful God, and the thing is not merciful, then I deny it, and say He never wrote it. I will live by the standard of reason, and if thinking in accordance with reason takes me to perdition then I will go to Hell with my reason rather than to Heaven without it.) (Applause.)

Now, does this Bible teach political freedom; or does it teach political tyranny? Does it teach a man to resist oppression? Does it teach a man to tear from the throne of tyranny the crowned thing and robber called king? Let us see. (Reading.)
Let every soul be subject to the higher powers: For there is no power but God; the powers that be are ordained of God. Rom. xiii. 1.
Therefore ye must needs be subject not only for wrath but also for conscience sake. Rom. viii. 4, 4.
(I deny this wretched doctrine. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to protect the right of man, I am a rebel. Wherever the sword of rebellion is drawn to give men liberty, to clothe him in all his just rights, I am on the side of that rebellion.)

Does the Bible give woman her rights? Does it treat woman as she ought to be treated, or is it barbarian? We shall see:
let woman learn in silence with all subjection 1 Tim. ii. 11
If a woman should know anything let her ask her husband. Imagine the ignorance of a lady who had only that source of information.) (Laughter.)
But suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve. (Indeed!)
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression. (Poor woman!)
Here is something from the Old Testment:
When thou goest forth to war against thine enemies, and the Lord thy God hath delivered them into thine hands, and thou hast taken them captives:
And seest among the captives a beautiful woman, and hast a desire unto her, that thou wouldst have her to be thy wife;
Then thou shalt bring her home to thine house; and she shall shave her head, and pare her nails. (Deut. xxi. 10, 11, 12.)
(That is self-defense, I suppose!)
(Cheers and laughter.)
I need not go further in Bible quotations to show that woman throughout the Old Testament is a degraded being, having no rights which her husband, father, brother or uncle is bound to respect. Still, that is Bible doctrine, and that Bible is the word of a just and omniscient God!

Does the Bible teach the existence of devils? Of course it does. Yes, it teaches not only the existence of a good Being but a bad Being. This good Being had to have a home; that home was Heaven. This bad Being had to have a home; and that home was Hell. This Hell is supposed to be nearer to earth than I would rare to have it, and to be peopled with spirits, spooks, hobgoblins, and all the fiery shapes with which the imagination of ignorance and fear could people that horrible place; and the Bible teaches the existence of Hell and this big Devil and all these little devils. The Bible teaches the doctrine of witchcraft and makes us believe that there are sorcerers and witches, and that the dead could be raised by the power of sorcery. Does anybody believe it now?

Then said Saul unto his servants, seek me a woman that hath a familiar spirit, that I may go to her and inquire of her. And his servants said to him, Behold, there is a woman that hath a familiar spirit at Endor.
In another place he declares that witchcraft is an abomination unto the Lord. He wanted no rivals in this business. (Laughter.)
Now what does the New Testament, teach:
Then was Jesus led up of the spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil.
And when he had fasted forty days and forty nights, he was afterwards a-hungered.
And when the tempter came to him, he said, if thou be the Son of God, command these stones to be made bread.
But he answered and said, it is written, man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.
Then the devil taketh him up into the holy city, and setteth him on a pinnacle of he temple.
And saith unto him, If thou be the Son of God, cast thyself down, for it is written, He shall give his angels charge concerning thee; and in their hands they shall bear thee up, lest at any time thou dash thy foot against a stone.
Jesus said unto him, it is written again, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord, thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Matt. iv. 1-7.
[Is it possible that anyone can believe that the Devil absolutely took God Almighty, and put him on the pinnacle of the temple, and endeavored to persuade him to jump down? (Great laughter.) Is it possible?]
Again, the Devil taketh him into an exceedingly high mountain, and showeth him all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of them:
And saith unto him, All these things will I give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.
Then said Jesus unto him, Get thee hence Satan, for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve. Matt. iv. 8-11.
(Now the Devil must have known at that time that He was God, and God at that time must have known that the other was the Devil, who had the impudence to promise God a world in which he did not have a tax-title to an inch of land.)

Now, what of the Sabbath-the Lord's day? Why is Sunday the Lord's day? If Sunday alone is the Lord's day, whose day is Monday, Tuesday, Friday, etc.? No matter! The idea, that God hates to hear your child laugh on Sunday! On Sunday let your children play games. I see a poor man who hasn't money enough to go to a big church, and he has too much independence to go to the little Church which the big church built for charity. If he enters the portals of the big church with poor clothes on, the usher approaches him with a severe face, and "Brother, I'm sorry, but only high-toned servants of the living God congregate in this church for worship, and with that seedy suit on we cannot admit you. All the seats in this magnificent edifice are owned and represented by 'solid' men, by men of capital. We pity our pastor $5,000 a year-the annual eight weeks' vacation thrown in-and it would not be profitable for us to seriously encourage the attendance of so insignificant a person as yourself. Just around the corner there is a little cheap church with a little cheap pastor, where they can dish up Hell to you in an approved style-in a style more suitable to your needs and condition; and the dish will not be as expensive to you either!"

If I had chanced to be that poor man in the seedy garments, and had been endeavoring to serve my Maker for even half a century, I would have felt like muttering audibly, "You go to Hell!" [I am not much given to profanity, but when I am sorely aggravated and vexed in spirit, I declare to you that it is such a relief to me, such a solace to my troubled soul, and gives me such heavenly peace, to now and then allow a word or phrase to escape my lips which can serve me no other expertly purpose, seemingly, than to render emphatic my otherwise mildly expressed ideas. I make this confession parenthetically, and in a whisper, my friends, trusting you will not allow it to go further]. (Laughter.)

Now, I tell you, if you don't want to go to church, go to the woods and take your wife and children and a lunch with you, and sit down upon the old log and let the children gather flowers, and hear the leaves whispering poems like memories of long ago! and when the sun is about going down, kissing the summits of the distant hills, go home with your hearts filled with throbs of joy and gladness, and the cheeks of your little ones covered with the roseblushes of health! There is more recreation and solid enjoyment in that than putting on your Sunday clothes and going to a canalboat with a steeple on top of it (laughter), and listening to a man tell you that your chances are about ninety-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety-nine to one for being eternally damned! (Applause.)

Oh, strike with a hand of fire, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair! Fill the vast cathedral aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ's keys! Blow, bugler, blow, until the silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit waves and charm the lovers wandering mid the vineclad hills!-but know your sweetest strains are but discord compared with childhood's happy laugh-the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy! 0, rippling river of laughter; thou are the blessed boundary line between beasts and men, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O, laughter, roselipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in thy cheek to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief! (Applause.)

Do not make slaves of your children on Sunday. Don't place them in long, straight, rows, like fence-posts, and "Sh! children, it's Sunday!" when by chance you hear a sound or a rustle. Let winsome Johnny have light and air, and let him grow beautiful; let him laugh until his little sides ache, if he feels like it; let him pinch the cat's tail until the house is in an uproar with his yells-let him do anything that will make him happy. When I was a little boy children went to bed when they were not sleepy, and always got up when they were. (Laughter.) I would like to see that changed-we may see it some day. It is really easier to wake a child with a kiss than a blow; with kind words than with harshness and a curse. Another thing; let the children eat what they want. Let them commence at whichever end of the dinner they please. They know what they want much better than you do. Nature knows perfectly well what she is about, and if you go a-fooling with her you may get into trouble.

The crime charged to me is this: I insist that the Bible is not the word of God; that we should not whip our children; that we should treat our wives as loving equals; that God never upheld polygamy and slavery; deny that God ever commanded his generals to slaughter innocent babes and tear and rip open women with the sword of war; that God ever turned Lot's wife into a pillar of salt (although she might have deserved that fate]; that God ever made a woman out of a man's or any other animal's rib! And I emphatically deny that God ever signed or sealed a commission appointing his Satanic Majesty Governor General over an extensive territory popularly styled Hell, with absolute power to torture, burn, maim, boil, or roast at his pleasure the victims of his master's displeasure! I deny these things, and for that I am assailed by the clergy throughout the United States!

Now, you have read the Bible romance of the fall of Adam? Yes; well, you know that nearly or quite all the religions of this world account for the existence of evil by such a story as that! Adam, the miserable coward, informed God that his wife was at the bottom of the whole business! "She did tempt me and I did eat!" And then commenced a row, and we have been engaged in it ever since! You know what happened to Adam and his wife for her transgressions?

In another account of what is said to have been the same transaction-which is the most sensible account of the two-the Supreme Brahma concluded, as he had a little leisure, that he would make a world, and a man and woman. He made the world, the man, and then the woman, and then placed the pair on the Island of Ceylon. [Bear in mind there were no ribs used in this affair.] This island is said to be the most beautiful the mind of man can conceive of. Such birds you never saw, such songs you never heard! and then such flowers, such verdure! The branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through, there floated out from every tree melodious strains of music from a thousand Æolian harps! After Brahma put them there he said: "Let them have a period of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should forever precede marriage." And, with the nightingale singing, and the stars twinkling, and the little brooklets murmuring, and the flowers blooming, and the gentle breezes fanning their brows, they courted, and loved! What a sweet courtship! Then Brahma married the happy pair, and remarked: "Remain here; you can be happy on this island, and it is my will that you never leave it." Well, after a little while, the man became uneasy and said to the wife of his youth: "I believe I'll look about a little." He determined to seek greener pastures. He proceeded to the western extremity of the island and discovered a little narrow neck of land connecting the island with the mainland, and the Devil-they had a genuine Devil in those days, too, it seems, who is always "playing the devil" with us produced a mirage, and over on the mainland were such hills and vales, such dells and dales, such lofty mountains crowned with perpetual snow, such cataracts clad in bows of glory, that he rushed breathlessly back to his wife, exclaiming: "O, Heva, the country over there is a thousand times better and lovelier than this; let us migrate." She, womanlike, said: "Adami, we must let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." But he said: "No, we will go." She followed him, and when they came to this narrow neck of land he took her up on his back and carried her across. But at the instant he put her down there was a crash, and looking back they discovered that this narrow neck of land had fallen into the sea. The mirage had disappeared, and there was nothing but rocks and sand, the Supreme Brahma cursed them to the lowest Hell. Then Adami spoke-and it showed him to be every inch a man-"Curse me, but curse not her; it was not her fault, it was mine." (Our Adam says, with a pusillanimous whine: "Curse her, for it is her fault; she tempted me and I did eat!" The world to-day is teeming with just such cowards.)Then said Brahma: "I will save her, but not thee." And then spoke Adami's wife, out of the fullness of the love of a heart in which there was enough to make all her daughters rich in holy affection: "If thou will not spare him, spare neither me; I do not wish to live without him; I love him." Then magnanimously said the Supreme Brahma; "I will spare you both, and watch over you and your children forever!"

Now, tell me truly, which is the grander story? The book containing this story is full of good things, and yet Christians style as heathen those who have adopted this book as their guide, and spend thousands of dollars annually in sending missionaries to convert them!

It has been too often conceded that because the New Testament contains, in many passages, a lofty and terse expression of love as the highest duty of man, Christianity must have a tendency to ennoble his nature. But Christianity is like sweetened whisky and water-it perverts and destroys that which it should nourish and strengthen.

Christianity makes an often fatal attack on a man's morality-if he happens to be blessed with any-by substituting for the sentiments of love and duty to our neighbors a sense of obligation, of blind obedience to an infinite, mysterious, revengeful, tyrannical God! The real principle of Christian morality is servile obedience to a dangerous Power! Dispute the assertions of even your priest as to the requirements, dislikes, desires and wishes of the Almighty, and you might as well count yourself as lost sulphurically lost! If you are one of God's chosen, or in other words, have been saved, and are even so fortunate as to attain to the glories and joys of the gold-paved streets of heaven, you are expected, in looking over the banisters of heaven down into the abyss of eternal torture, to view with complacency the agonized features of your mother, sister, brother, or infant child-who are writhing in hell-and laugh at their calamity! You are not allowed to carry them a drop of water to cool their parched tongues! And if you are a Christian, you at this moment believe you will enjoy the situation!

If a man in a quarrel cuts down his neighbor in his sins, the poor, miserable victim goes directly to hell! The murderer may reasonably count on a lease of a few weeks of life, interviews his pastor, confesses the crime, repents, accepts the grace of God, is forgiven and then smoothly and gently glides from the rudely constructed scaffold into a heaven of joy and bliss, there to sing the praises of the lamb of God forever and forever! Poor, unfortunate victim! Happy murderer!

Ah, what a beautiful religion humanitarianism and charity might become! To do so sweet a thing as to love our neighbors as we love ourselves; to strive to attain to as perfect a spirit as a Golden Rule would bring us into; to make virtue lovely by living it, grandly and nobly and patiently the outgrowth of a brotherhood not possible in this world where men are living away from themselves and trampling justice and mercy and forgiveness under their feet!

Speaking of the different religions, of course they are represented by different churches; and the best hold of the churches and the surest way of giving totally depraved humanity a realizing sense of their utterly lost condition is to talk and preach hell, with all its horrible, terrible concomitants. True, the different priests advocate the doctrine, only when they see it is the only thing to rouse the sinners from their lethargy; for where is the man who will not accept the grace of Jesus Christ if he becomes convinced that his fate in the hereafter is a terrible one! The ministers of the different churches know full well which side of their bread is buttered. A priest is a divinity among his people-a man around whom his parishioners throw a glamour of sanctity, and one who can do no wrong, albeit his chief and growing characteristics are tyranny, arrogancy, self-conceit, deception, bigotry and superstition! Tyrannical do I call them? Most assuredly! Suppose, for example, the Methodist or Presbyterian Church had the power to decide whether you or I or any other man should be a Methodist or Presbyterian, and we should decline to follow the path pointed out to us, or either of us, what, I solemnly and candidly ask you, would be the result? Our fate would be more terrible than their endless hell! The inquisition would rise again in all its horrid blackness! Instruments of torture would darken our vision on every hand! But, thank God-not that terrible Being whom Christians would have us believe is our Maker-this is a free land-- free as the air we breathe; and you and I can partake of the orthodox waders of life freely, or we can let them alone! (Applause.) When I see a man perched upon a pedestal called a "pulpit"--a man who is one of nature's noblemen, physically, and fully able to breast the storms of life and earn an honest living-telling his hearers, with perspiring brow and all his might and main, of the terrors of the seething caldron of hell, and how certain it is that they are to be unceremoniously dumped therein to be boiled through all ages, yet never boiled done--unless they seek salvation-when I look upon that man, honor bright, I pity him, for I cannot help comparing him with the lower animals! Then there is a reaction, and I feel an utter contempt for him, for he may know, when he declares hell a reality, he is lying!

Now, of the deception of the preacher. At the close of a sermon in an orthodox church Rev. Mr. Solemnface steps to the side of Bro. Everbright, who has been absent from the brimstone-mill for several months:
"Ah! Bro. Everbright, how do you do? Long time since I have seen you; how's your family? Quite well? Is it well with thee to-day? Rather lukewarm, eh? Sorry, sorry. Well, Brother, can you do something for us financially to-day? Our people think my pulpit is too common, and say a couple of hundred will put it in good shape and make it desirable and attractive. Can you contribute a few dollars to the fund?"

"Well, Bro. Solemnface, for four long months I have been ill; not a day's work have I done, and not a cent of money have I that I can call my own. Next year I trust I can do something for the cause of my Maker."

"Ah-h-h-h-h!" and Bro. S.'s face assumes a terrible look of disappointment, and he is gone in a moment.

Out upon such a fraud! The pulpits of the land are full of them. The world is cursed with them! They possess all the elements of vagabonds, deadbeats, falsifiers, beggars, vultures, hyenas and jackals!

In past ages the cross had been in partnership with the sword, and the religion of Christ was established by murderers, tyrants and hypocrites. I want you to know that the Church carried the black flag, and I ask you what must have been the civilizing influence of such a religion? (Applause.)

Of all the selfish things in this world, it is one man wanting to get to heaven, caring nothing what becomes of the rest of mankind, saying: "If I can only get my little soul in!" (Laughter.) I have always noticed that the people who have the smallest souls make the most fuss about getting them saved. (Laughter.) Here is what we are taught by the Church to-day. We are taught by them that fathers and mothers can all be happy in heaven, no matter who may be in hell; that the husband could be happy there with the wife that would have died for him at any moment of his life, in hell. But they say, "Hell, we don't believe in fire." (Laughter.) "I don't think you understand me. What we believe in now is remorse." What will you have remorse for? For the mean things you have done when you are in hell? Will you have any remorse for the mean things you have done when you are in heaven? Or will you be so good then that you won't care how you used to be? I tell you to-day that no matter in what heaven you may be, no matter in what star you are spending the summer, if you meet another man whom you have wronged, you will drop a little behind in the tune. (Laughter.) No matter in what part of hell you are you will meet some one who has suffered, whose nakedness you have clothed, and the fire will cool up a little. (Laughter.) According to his Christian doctrine, you won't care how mean you were once. Is it a complement to an infinite God to say that every being He ever made deserved to be damned the minute He got him done, and that He will damn everybody He has not had a chance to make over? Is it possible that somebody else can be good for me, and that this doctrine of the atonement is the only anchor for the human soul?

We sit by the fireside and see the flames and sparks fly up the chimney-everybody happy, and the cold wind and sleet beating on the window, and out on the doorstep a mother with her child on her breast freezing. How happy it makes a fireside, that beautiful contrast! And we say God is good, and there we sit, and she sits and moans, not one night, but forever. Or we are sitting at the table with our wives and children, everybody eating, happy and delighted, and Famine comes and pushes out its shriveled palms and with hungry eyes implores us for a crust; how that would increase the appetite! And that is the Christian heaven. Don't you see that these infamous doctrines petrify the human heart? And I would have every one who hears me, swear that he will never contribute another dollar to build another church in which is taught such infamous lies. (Applause.) Let every man try to make every day a joy, and God cannot afford to damn such a man. Consequently humanity is the only religion. (Loud applause.)

*The following incident, showing Col. Ingersoll's disposition to practice what he preaches whenever the opportunity presents itself, we have never before seen in print - One day, during the winter of 1863-4, when the Colonel had a law office in Peoria, Ill.,--and before the close of the late war of the rebellion-a thinly clad, middle-aged, ladylike woman came into has office and asked assistance. "My good woman, why do you ask it?" "Sir, my husband is a private in --the Illinois Infantry, and stationed somewhere in Virginia, but I do not know where, as I have not heard from him for nearly six months, although previous to that time I seldom failed to get a letter from him as often as once a week, and whenever he received his pay the most of his money came to me. To tell the truth, I do not know whether he is living or not. But one thing I do know, I do not hear from him. I have seven children to provide for, but no money in the house, not a particle of bread in the pantry, nor a lump of coal in the shed, and the landlord threatening to turn us out in the storm. This city pledged itself to give wives a certain sum monthly, providing they consented to their husbands responding to the call of the President for troops; but, disregarding these pledges, we and our children are left to starve and freeze, and to be turned out of our houses and homes by relentless landlords. Now, sir, can you tell me what am I to do?"
The Colonel drew his bandanna from his greatcoat pocket, lightly touched his eyes with it and rising to his feet pointed to a chair -- "Sit down, madam, and remain till I return. I will be back in a few minutes." He picked up a half-sheet of legal cap and a pencil, and departed for the law and other offices of the building, of which there are several. Entering the first that appeared. "Good morning, Smith; give me half-a-dollar." "Well, now, Colonel, you are--" "Never mind if I am--I must have it!" It came. He entered another. "Hello! Colonel, what's new?" "I want a half-dollar from you!" "What for?" "None of your business--I want the money." He got it. He entered a third, "Hallo, Bob! Anything new on eter--" "Never mind, I must have fifty cents!" "But--," "But nothing, Jones, give me what I ask for." Of course, he got what he asked for. on through fourteen offices, from which he obtained $7. Returning to his office, he put his hand in his own pocket and drew forth a $5 note and handed the woman $12. "Take this, my good woman, and make it go as far as you can, if you obtain relief from no other source, call on me again and I will do the best I can for you!" And still Col. Ingersoll is styled by hell-fire advocates an infidel, atheist, dog!

"Man's inhumanity to man
Makes countless millions mourn."

Human Rights

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I suppose that man, from the most grotesque savage up to Hæckle, has had a philosophy by which he endeavored to account for all the phenomena of nature he may have observed. From that mankind may have got their ideas of right and wrong. Now, where there are no rights there can be no duties. Let us always remember that only as man becomes free can he by any possibility become good or great. As I said, every savage has had his philosophy, and by it accounted for every thing he observed. He had an idea of rain and rainbow, and he had an idea of a controlling power. One said there is a Being who presides over our world, and who will destroy us unless we do right. Other had many of these beings, but they were invariably like themselves. The most fruitful imaginations cannot make more than a man, though it may make infinite powers and attributes out of the powers and attributes of man. You can't build a God unless you start with a human being. The savage said, when there was a storm, "Somebody is angry." When lightning leaped from the lurid could, he thought "What have I been doing?" and when he couldn't think of any wrong he had been doing, he tried to think of some wrong his neighbors had been doing.

I may as well state here that I believe man has come up from the lowest orders of creation, and may have not come up very far, still, I believe we are doing very well, considering.

But, speaking of man's early philosophy, his morality was founded first on self-defense. When gathered together in tribes, he held that this Infinite Being would hold the tribe responsible for the actions of any individual who had angered Him.

They imagined this Being got angry. Just imagine the serenity of an Infinite Being being disturbed and a God breaking into a passion because some poor wretch had neglected to bring two turtle-doves to a priest!

Then they sought out this poor offending individual, to punish him and appease the wrath of this Being. And here commenced religious persecution.

Now, I do not say there is no God, but what I do say is that I do not know. The only difference between me and the theologian is that I am honest. There may or there may not be an infinite Being, but I do not know it, and until I do I cannot conceive of any obedience I owe to any unknown being.

As soon as men began to imagine they would be held responsible for the act of any other person, came then necessity for some one to teach them how to keep from offending the Being. Some called him medicine-man, some called him priest, now, we call him theologian. These men set out to teach men how to keep from offending this Being, and they laid down certain laws to regulate the conduct of men. First of all it was necessary to believe in this Power. To disbelieve in Him was the worst offense of all. To have some human being, dressed in the skin of a wild beast, deny the existence of this Infinite Being, was more than Infinite Being could stand. The first thing, therefore, was to believe in this power, the next to suppose this gentleman standing between you and the supreme wrath. These gentlemen were the lobbyists with the Power, and sometimes succeeded in getting the veto used in favor of their clients.

For ages, as mankind slowly came through the savage state, the world was filled with infinite fear. They accounted for everything bad that happened as the wrath of this Supreme Being. But they went from savagery to barbarism -- a step in improvement -- and then began to build temples to, and makes images of, this Being. Then man began to believe he could influence this Being by prayer, by getting on his knees to the image he had made.

Nothing, I suppose astonishes a missionary more than to see a savage in Central Africa on his knees before a stone praying for luck in hunting or in fighting. And yet it strikes me -- we have our army Chaplains before a battle praying for the success of our side. They don't pray for assistance if our cause is just, but they pray, "Lord, help us!" I can't see the difference between the two.

But there is this said in favor of prayer that, whether successful or not, it is a sort of intellectual exercise. Like a man trying to lift himself, he may not succeed, but he gets a good deal of exercise.

But as man proceeds, he begins to help himself and to take advantage of mechanical powers to assist him, and he begins to see he can help himself a little, and exactly in the proportion he helps himself he comes less to rely on the power of priest or prayer to help him. Just to the extent we are helpless, to that extent do we rely on the unknown.

As religion developed itself, keeping place with the belief in theology, came the belief in demonology. They gave one Being the credit of doing all the good things, and must give some one credit for the bad things, and so they created a devil. At one time it was as disreputable to deny the existence of a God; to deny the existence of a hell, with its fire and brimstone, as to deny the existence of a heaven with its harp and love.

With the development of religion came the idea that no man should be allowed to bring the wrath of God on a nation by his transgressions, and this idea permeates the Christian world, to-day. Now, what does this prove? Simply that your religion is founded on fear, and when you are afraid you cannot think. Fear drops on its knees and believes. It is only courage that can think.

It was the idea that man's actions could do something, outside of any effect his mechanical works might have, to change the order of nature; that he might commit some offense to bring on an earthquake -- but he can't do it. You can't be bad enough to cause an earthquake; neither can you be good enough to stop one. Out of that wretched doctrine and infamous mistake that man's belief could have any effect upon nature grew all these inquisitions, racks and collars of torture, and all the blood that was ever shed by religious persecution.

In Europe the country was divided between kings and priests. The kind held that he got his power from the Unknown; so did the priests. They could not say that they got it from the people. The people would deny it; the Unknown could not deny it. And thus the altar and throne stand side by side. And Republicanism was a thing unknown.

It has been said that the Pilgrim Fathers came to this country to establish religious liberty. They did no such thing. They were not in favor of it. They came with the Testament in their hands; and with it they could have no idea of religious liberty! When they had established thirteen colonies here, and had struggled for and obtained their independence, they established federal government. But did they seek religious liberty? No! When they formed a federal government each church and each colony was jealous of the other. They said to the general government, "You can't have any religion in the Constitution," but each state could make its own religion; and they made them.

Here the speaker read copious extracts from the statutes of the different states in reference to the qualifications for the exercise of citizenship -- the religious belief necessary -- and on concluding asked: "Had they (the members who drew up these state constitutions) any idea of religious liberty?"

Continuing, he said: "Now, my friends, there's a party started in this country with the object of giving every man, woman and child the rights they are entitled to. Now, every one of us has the same rights. I have the right to labor and to have the products of my labor. I have the right to think; and, furthermore, to express my thoughts, because expression is the reward of my intellectual labor. And yet in the United States there are states where men of my ideas would not be allowed to testify in a court of justice. Is that right? There are states in this country where, if they law had been enforced, I would have been sent to the penitentiary for lecturing. All such laws were enacted by barbarians; and our country will not be free until they are wiped from the statute books of every state.

Does an Infinite Being need to be protected by a state legislature? If the Bible is inspired, does the Author of it need the support of the law to command respect? We don't need any law to make mankind respect Shakespeare. We come to the altar of that great man and cover it with our gratitude without a statute. Think of a law to govern tastes! Think of a law to govern mind, or any question whatever! Think of the way in which they have supported the Bible! They've terrorized the old with laws, and captured the dear, little innocent children and poisoned their minds with their false stories, until when they have reached the age of manhood they have been afraid to think for themselves. Let us see what the laws are now by which they guard their Bible and their God.

(Here the speaker read extracts from statutes from several states in reference to blasphemy and profanation of the Sabbath, commenting on each as he ran them through.)

Pursuing the thread of his discourse, he said : Every American should see to it that all these laws are done away with, once and forever.

There has been a reaction of late years. This country has begun to be prosperous. We don't think much of religion; 'tis only when hard times come we turn our attention toward it. There are people in this country who say we are getting too irreligious -- too scientific. Now, is it not a fact that we are happier to-day than at any period of our history? You live in a great country -- though perhaps you do not know it. But lived in any other country for a while, and you'll find it out. See, then, what we've got by looking a little to the affairs of the world!

The Bible can't stand to-day without the support of the civil power. No religion ever flourished except by the support of the sword, and no religion like this could have been established except by brute force.

At one time we thought a great deal of clergymen, but now we have got to thinking they aren't of as much importance as a man that has invented something. The Church, seeing this, has made up its mind that it is necessary to do something; and so got up a plan to be acknowledged by law. Here's what they wish to do: (Here the speaker read some extracts from the constitution of the National Reform Association.) Continuing, he said:

Our fathers, in 1776, building better than they knew, retired the gods from politics. I do not believe Jesus Christ is the ruler of nations. If he is the ruler of one, He is the ruler of all. Why does He not, then, rule one as well as another? If you give Him credit for the good things of one, you must denounce Him for the tyranny and despotism of others. The revealed Word of God is not the standing of civil justice in this country! The Bible is not the standard of the right and wrong, or of decency, in this country.

You can't put God in the Constitution, because, if you do, there would be no room for the folks. Whatever you put in the Constitution you must enforce by the sword -- and you can't go to war with any man for not believing in your God. God has no business there; and any man who is in favor of putting him there is an enemy to the interests of American institutions.

Now, for the purpose of preventing the name of God being put into the Constitution, there's another little party which has been started, and these are its doctrines:
We want an absolute divorce between Church and State. We demand that Church property should not be exempt from taxation. If you are going to exempt anything, exempt the homesteads of the poor. Don't exempt a rich corporation, and make men pay taxes to support a religion in which they do not believe. But they say churches do good. I don't know whether they do or not. Do you see, such a wonderful difference between a member of a church and the man who does not believe in it? Do church members pay their debts any better than any others? Do they treat their families any better? Did you ever hear of any man coming into a town broke and inquire where the Deacon of a Presbyterian Church lived? Has not the church opposed every science from the first ray of light until now? Didn't they damn into eternal flames the man who discovered the world was round? Didn't they damn into eternal flames the man who discovered the movement of the earth in its orbit? Didn't they persecute the astronomers? Didn't they even try to put down life insurance by saying it was sinful to bet on the time God has given you to live? Science built the Academy, superstition the Inquisition. Science constructed the telescope, religion the rack; science made us happy here, and says if there's another life we'll all stand an equal chance there; religion made us miserable here, and says a large majority will be eternally miserable there. Should we, therefore, exempt it from taxation for any good it has done?

The next thing we ask is a perfect divorce between church and school. We say that every school should be secular because it's just to everybody. If I were an Israelite I wouldn't want to be taxed to have my children taught that his ancestors had murdered a Supreme Being. Let us teach, not the doctrines of the past, but the discoveries of the present; not the five points of Calvinism, but geology and geography. Education is the lever to raise mankind, and superstition is the enemy of intelligence.

We demand, next, that women be put upon an equality with man. Why not? Why shouldn't men be decent enough in the management of politics of the country for women to mingle with them? It is an outrage that any one should live in this country for sixty or seventy years and be forced to obey the laws without having any voice in making them. Let us give woman the opportunity to care for herself, since men are not decent enough to seek to care for her. The time will come when we'll treat a woman that works and takes care of two or three children as well as a woman dressed in diamonds who does nothing. The time will come when we'll not tell our domestic we expect to meet her in heaven, and yet not be willing to have her speak to us in the drawing-room.

Ignorance is a poor pedestal to set virtue upon and mock-modesty should not have the right to prevent people from knowing themselves. Every child, has a right to be well-born, and ignorance has no right to people the world with scrofula and consumption. When we come to the conclusion that God is not taking care of us, and that we have to take care of ourselves, then we'll begin to have something in the world worth living for.

I would wish there was seated upon the throne of the universe one who would see to it that justice did always prevail. I do not propose to give up the little words I live in for the unknown.

I would wish that the friends who bid us "good night" in this world might meet us with "good morning" there. Just as long as we love one another we'll hope for another world; just as long as love kisses the lips of death will we believe and hope for a future reunion. I would not take one hope away from the human heart or one joy from the human soul, but I hold in contempt the gentlemen who keep heaven on sale; I look with contempt on him who keeps it on draught; I look with pitying contempt on him who endeavors to prohibit honest thought by promising a reward in another world. If there is another world we'll find when we come there that no one has done enough good to be eternally rewarded, no one has done enough harm to meet with unending, eternal pain and agony. We'll find that there is no Being that ever hindered a man from exercising his reason. Now, while we are here, no matter what happens to us hereafter, let us cultivate strength of heart and brain to stand the inevitable. No creed can help you there. When the heart is touched with agony nothing but time can heal it.

I want, if I can, to do a little to increase the rights of men, to put every human being on an equality, to sweep away the clouds of superstition, to make people think more of what happens today than what somebody said happened 3,000 years ago. This is all I want: To do what little I can to clutch one-seventh of our time from superstition, to give our Sundays to rest and recreation. I want a day or enjoyment, a day to read old books, to meet old friends, and get acquainted with one's wife and children. I want a day to gather strength to meet the toils of the next. I want to get that day away from the church, away from superstition and the contemplation of hell, to be the best and sweetest and brightest of all the days in the week. The best way to make a day sacred is to fill it up with useful labor. That day is best on which most good is done for the human race. I hope to see the time when we'll have a day for the opera, the play -- good plays, for they do good. You never saw the villain foiled in a play where the audience did not applaud. You never saw them applaud when the rascal was successful in his villainy. If you could go to a theatre and see put upon the stage the scenes of the Old Testament, with its butcheries and rapes and deeds of violence, you would detest it all the days of your life. I'd like to have every horror of the Old Testament set on this stage, to have somebody represent the Being as He is represented there, giving His brutal orders, and let the orthodox see their God as He really is.

I want to have us all do what little we can to secularize this Government -- take it from the control of savagery and give it to science, take it from the Government of the past and give it to the enlightened present, and in this Government let us uphold every man and woman in their rights, that every one, after he or she comes to the age of discretion, may have a voice in the affairs of the nation. Do this, and we'll grow in grandeur and splendor every day, and the time will come when every man and every woman shall have the same rights as every other man and every other woman has. I believe we are growing better. I don't believe the wail of want shall be heard forever: that the prison and the gallows will always curse the ground. The time will come when liberty and law and love, like the rings of Saturn, will surround the world; when the world will cease making these mistakes; when every man will be judged according to his worth and intelligence. I want to do all I can to hasten that day.

Intellectual Development

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN:--In the first place I want to admit that there are a great many good people, quite pious people, who don't agree with me, and all that proves in the world, is, that I don't agree with them. I am not endeavoring to force my ideas or notions upon other people, but I am saying what little I can to induce everybody in the world to grant to every other person every right he claims for himself. (Applause.) I claim, standing under the flag of nature, under the blue and the stars, that I am the peer of any other man, and have the right to think and express my thoughts. (Applause.) I claim in the presence of the Unknown, and upon a subject that nobody knows anything about, and never did, I have as good a right to guess as anybody else. (Applause.) The gentlemen who hold views against mine, if they had any evidence, would have no fears-not the slightest. If a man has a diamond that has been examined by the lapidaries of the world, and some ignorant stonecutter tells him that it is nothing but an ordinary rock, he laughs at him; but if it has not been examined by lapidaries, and he is a little suspicious himself that it is not genuine, it makes him mad. (Laughter.) Any doctrine that will not bear investigation is not a fit tenant for the mind of an honest man. (Applause.) Any man who is afraid to have his doctrine investigated is not only a coward but a hypocrite. (Applause.) Now, all I ask is simply an opportunity to say my say. I will give that right to everybody else in the world. I understand that owing to my success in the lecture field several clergymen have taken it into their heads to lecture-some of them I believe, this evening. (Laughter.) I say all that I claim is the right I give to others, and any man who will not give that right is a dishonest man, no matter what church he may belong to or not belong to-if he does not freely accord to all others the right to think, he is not an honest man. I said some time ago that if there was any being who would eternally damn one of his children for the expression of an honest opinion that he was not a God, but that he was a demon; and from that they have said first, that I did not believe in any God, and secondly, that I called him a demon. If I did not believe in him how could I call him anything? These things hardly hang together. But that makes no difference; I expect to be maligned; I expect to be slandered; I expect to have my reputation blackened by gentlemen who are not fit to blacken my shoes. (Applause.) But letting that pass-- simply believe in liberty; that is my religion; that is the altar where I worship; that is my shrine that every human being shall have every right that I have-that is my religion. I am going to live up to it and going to say what little I can to make the American people brave enough to give everybody else the rights they have themselves. Can there ever be any progress in this world to amount to anything until we have liberty? The thoughts of a man who is not free are not worth much-not much. A man who thinks with the club of a creed above his head-a man who thinks casting his eye askance at the flames of Hell, is not apt to have very good thoughts. And for my part, I would not care to have any status or social position even in heaven if I had to admit that I never would have been there only I got scared. When we are frightened we do not think very well. If you want to get at the honest thoughts of a man he must be free. If he is not free you will not get his honest thought. You won't trade with a merchant, if he is free; you won't employ him if he is a lawyer, if he is free; you won't call him if he is a doctor, if he is free; and what are you going to get out of him but hypocrisy? Force will not make thinkers, but hypocrites. A minister told me awhile ago, "Ingersoll," he says, "if you do not believe the Bible you ought not to say so." Says I, "Do you believe the Bible?" He says, "I do." I says, "I don't know whether you do or not; may be you are following the advice you gave me; how shall I know whether you believe it or not?" Now, I shall die without knowing whether that man believed the Bible or not. (Laughter.) There is no way that I can possibly find out, because he said that even if he did not believe it he would not say so. Now, I read, for instance, a book. Now, let us be honest. Suppose that a clergyman and I were on an island-nobody but us two-and I were to read a book, and I honestly believed it untrue, and he asked me about it what ought I to say? Ought I to say I believed it? and be lying, or ought I to say I did not?-that is the question; and the church can take its choice between honest men, who differ, and hypocrites, who differ but say they do not-you can have your choice, all of you.* If you give us liberty, you will have in this country a splendid diversity of individuality; but if on the contrary you say men shall think so and so, you will have the sameness of stupid nonsense. In my judgment, it is the duty of every man to think and express his thoughts; but at the same time do not make martyrs of yourselves. Those people that are not willing you should be honest, they are not worth dying for, they are not worth being a martyr for, and if you are afraid you cannot support your wife and children in this town and express your honest thought, why keep it to yourself, but if there is such a man here he is a living certificate of the meanness of the community in which

*"These black-coats are the only persons of my acquaintance who resemble the chameleon, in being able to keep one eye directed upwards to heaven, and the other downwards to the good things of this world."--Alex. von Humboldt.

he lives. Go right along, if you are afraid it will take food from the mouths of your dear babes-if you are afraid you cannot clothe your wife and children, go along with them to church, say amen in as near the right place as you can, if you happen to be awake (laughter) and I will do your talking for you. I will say my say, and the time will come when every man in the country will be astonished that there ever was a time that everybody had not the right to speak his honest thoughts. If there is a man here or in this town, preacher or otherwise, who is not willing that I should think and speak, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than I am. Civilization is liberty, slavery barbarism; civilization is intelligence, slavery is ignorance; and if we are any nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we have got better heads and more brains in them-that is the reason. Every man who has invented anything for the use and convenience of man has helped raise his fellow man, and all we have found out of the laws and forces of nature so that we are finally enabled to bring these forces of nature into subjection, to give us better houses, better food, better clothes-these are the real civilizers of our race; and the men who stand up as prophets and predict hell to their fellow man, they are not the civilizers of our race; the men who cut each other's throats because they fell out about baptism-they are not the civilizers of my race-the men who built the inquisitions and put into dungeons all the grand and honest men they could and-they are not the civilizers of my race.

The men who have corrupted the imaginations and hearts of men by their infamous dogma of hell-they are not the civilizers of my race. (Applause.) The men who have been predicting good for mankind, the men who have found some way to get us better homes and better houses and better education, the men who have allowed us to make slaves of the blind forces of nature-they have made this world fit to live in.

I want to prove to you if I can that this is all a question of intellectual development, a question of sense, and the more a man knows the more bigoted he is. The less a man knows the more certain he is that he knows it, and the more a man knows the better satisfied he is that he is entirely ignorant. Great knowledge is philosophic, and little, narrow, contemptible knowledge is bigoted and hateful. I want to prove it to you. I saw a little while ago models of nearly everything man has made for his use-nearly everything. I saw models of all the water craft; from the rude dug-out in which paddled the naked savage, both his forehead about half as high as his teeth were long (laughter) all the water craft from that dug-out up to a man-of-war that carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas --from that rude dug-out to a steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of New York, with three thousand miles of foaming billows before it, and not missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart from one shore to the other. I saw there their ideas of weapons, from the rude club, such as was seized by that same barbarian as he emerged from his den in the morning hunting a snake for his dinner; from that club to the boomerang, to the dagger, to the sword, to the blunderbuss, to the old flintlock, to the cap-lock, to the needlegun, to the cannon invented by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel. I saw their ideas of defensive armor, from the turtle-shell which one of these gentlemen lashed upon his breast preparatory to going to war, or the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on, that he pulled on his orthodox head (laughter) before he sallied forth. By "orthodox" I mean a man who has quit growing, not simply in religion, but in everything; whenever a man is done, he is orthodox; whenever he thinks he has found out all, he is orthodox; whenever he becomes a drag on the swift care of progress, he is orthodox. I saw their defensive armor, from the turtle shell and the porcupine skin to the shirts of mail of the middle ages, that defied the edge of the sword and the joint of the spear. I saw their ideas of agricultural implements, from the crooked stack that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to the agricultural implements of to-day, that make it possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being an ignoramus. When they had none of these agricultural implements-when they depended upon one crop-they were superstitious, for if the frosts struck one crop they thought the gods were angry with them.

Now, with the implements, machinery and knowledge of mechanics of to-day, people have found out that no one man can be good enough or bad enough to cause a frost. After having found out these things are contrary to the laws of nature, they began to raise more than one kind of crop. If the frost strikes one they have the other; if it happens to strike all in that locality there is surplus somewhere else, and that surplus is distributed by railways and steamers and by the thousand ways that we have to distribute these things; and as a consequence the agriculturist begins to think and reason and now for the first time in the history of the world the agriculturist begins to stand upon a level with the mechanic and with the man who has confidence in the laws and facts of nature. (Applause.) I saw there their musical instruments, from the tom tom (that is a hoop with two strings of rawhide drawn across it) to the instruments we have that make the common air blossom with melody. I saw their ideas of ornaments, from a string of the claws of a wild beast that once ornamented the dusky bosom of some savage belle, to the rubies and sapphires and diamonds with which civilization to-day is familiar. I saw their books, written upon the shoulder blades of sheep, upon the bark of trees, down to the illustrated volumes that are now in the libraries of the world. I saw their ideas of paintings from the rude daubs of yellow mud, to the grand pictures we see in the art galleries of to-day. I saw their ideas of sculpture, from a monster god with several legs, a good many noses, a great many eyes, and one little, contemptible, brainless head, to the sculpture that we have, where the marble is clothed with such personality that it seems almost impudence to touch it without an introduction. I saw all these things, and how men had gradually improved through the generations that are dead. And I saw at the same time a row of men's skulls, skulls from the Bushmen of Australia, skulls from the centre of Africa, skulls from the farthest islands of the Pacific, skulls from this country-- from the aborigines of America, skulls of the Aztecs, up to the best skulls, or many of the best of the last generation; and I noticed there was the same difference between the skulls as between the products of the skulls (applause) the same between that skull and that, as between the dug-out and the man-of-war, as between the dug-out and the steamship, as between the tom-tom and an opera of Verdi, as between those ancient agricultural implements and ours, as between that yellow daub and that landscape, as between that stone god and statue of to-day, and I said to myself, this is a question of Intellectual Development, this is a question of brain. The man has advanced just in proportion as he has mingled his thoughts with his labor, and just in proportion that his brain has gotten into partnership with his hand. Man has advanced just as he has developed intellectually, and no other way. That skull was a low den in which crawled and groped the meaner and baser instincts of mankind, and this was a temple in which dwelt love, liberty and joy. Why is it that we have advanced in the arts? It is because every incentive has been held out to the world, because we want better clubs or better cannons with which to kill our fellow Christians; we want better music, we want better houses; and any man who will invent them, and any man who will give them to us we will clothe him in gold and glory; we will crown him with honor. That gentleman in his dug-out not only had his ideas of mechanics, but he was a politician. (Laughter) His idea of politics was, might makes right; and it will take thousands of years before the world will be willing to say that right makes might. That was his idea of politics; and he had another idea-that all power came from the clouds, and that every armed thief that lived upon the honest labor of mankind had poured out upon his head the divine oil of authority. He didn't believe the power to govern came from the people; he did not believe that the great mass of people had any right whatever, or that the great mass of people could be allowed the liberty of thought and we have thousands of such to-day. They say thought is dangerous-don't investigate,* don't inquire; just believe; shut your eyes, and then you are safe. You must not hear this man or that man or some other man, or our dear doctrines will be overturned, and we have nobody on our side except a large majority; we have nobody on our side except the wealth and respectability of the world; we have nobody on our side except the infinite God, and we are afraid that one man, in one or two hours, will beat the whole party. (Sensation.) This man (in the dug-out) also had his ideas of religion-that fellow was orthodox (laughter) and any man who differed with him he called an infidel, an atheist, an outcast, and warned everybody against him. He had his religion-he believed in hell; he was glad of it; he enjoyed it; it was a great source of comfort to him to think when he didn't like people that he would have the pleasure of looking over and seeing them squirm upon the gridiron (Laughter.) When any man said he didn't believe there was a hell this gentleman got up in his pulpit and called a hyena. (Laughter.) That fellow believed in a devil too; that lowest skull was a devil factory-he believed in him. He believed he had a long tail adorned with a fiery dart; he believed

*"There is no method of reasoning more common, or more blameable, than in philosophical dispute to endeavor the refutation of any hypothesis, by a pretence of its dangerous consequences to religion and morality" --David Hume.

he had wings like a bat and had a pleasant habit of breathing sulfur; and he believed he had a cloven foot-such as most of your clergymen think I am blessed with myself. (Laughter.) They are shepherds of the sheep-the people are the sheep-that is all they are-they have to be watched and guarded by these shepherds and protected from the wolf who wants to reason with them-that is the doctrine. Now, all I claim is the safe right to improve on that gentleman's politics, as on the dug-out, and the same right to improve upon his religion as upon his plow, or the musical instrument known as the tom-tom-that is all. Now, suppose the King and Priest, if there was one, and there probably was one, as the further you go back the more ignorant you find mankind and the thicker you find these gentlemen-suppose the King and Priest had said: "That boat is the best boat that ever can be built; we got the model of that from Neptune, the god of the seas, and I guess the god of the water knows how to build a beat, and any man that says he can improve it by putting a stick in the middle with a rag on the end of it and has any talk about the wind blowing this way and that, he is a heretic-he is a blasphemer honor bright-what in your judgment would have been the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe? I think we would have been on the other side yet. (Laughter.) Suppose the King and Priests had said: "That plow is the best that ever can be invented and the model of that was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any man who says he can out-twist it, we will twist him." (Laughter.) Suppose the King and Priests had said, "That tom-tom is the finest instrument of music in the world-that is the kind of music found in Heaven, an angel sat upon the edge of a glorified cloud playing upon that tom-tom and became so entranced with the music that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it and that is how we got it, and any man who talks about putting any improvement on that, he is not fit to live."

Let me ask you-do you believe if that had been done the human ears ever would have been enriched with the divine symphonies of Beethoven? All I claim is the same right to improve upon this barbarian's ideas of politics and religion as upon everything else, and whether it is an improvement or not, I have a right to suggest it-that is my doctrine. (Applause.) They say to me, "God will punish you forever, if you do these things." Very well. I will settle with him. I had rather settle with him than anyone of his agents. I do not like them very well. In theology I am a granger-I do not believe in middle-men (sensation); what little business I have with heaven I will attend to myself. (Laughter.) Our fathers thought, just as many now think, that you could force men to think your way and if they failed to do it by reason, they tried it another way. I used to read about it when I was a boy-it did not seem to me that these things were true; it did not seem to me that there ever was such heartless bigotry in the heart of man; but there was and is to-night. I used to read about it-- did not appreciate it. I never appreciated it until I saw the arguments of those gentlemen. They used to use just such arguments as that man in the dug-out would have used to the next man ahead of him. This low miserable skull-this next man was a little higher, and this fellow behind called him a heretic, and the next was still a little higher, and he was called an infidel. And, so it went on through the whole row-always calling the man who was ahead an infidel and a heretic. No man was ever called so who was behind the army of progress. It has always been the man ahead that has been called the heretic. Heresy is the last and best thought always. Heresy extends the hospitability of the brain to a new idea; that is what the rotting says to the growing; that is what the dweller in the swamp says to the man on the sun-lit hill; that is what the man in the darkness cries out to the grand man upon whose forehead is shining the dawn of a grander day; that is what the coffin says to the cradle. Orthodoxy is a kind of shroud, and heresy is a banner Orthodoxy is a fog and Heresy a star shining forever above the cradle of truth. I do not mean simply in religion, I mean in everything and the idea I wish to impress upon you is that you should keep your minds open to all the influences of nature, you should keep your minds open to reason; hear what a man has to say, and do not let the turtle-shell of bigotry grow above your brain. Give everybody a chance and an opportunity; that is all.

I saw the arguments that those gentlemen have used on each other through all the ages. I saw a little bit of a thumbscrew not more than so long (illustrating) and attached to each end was a screw and the inner surface was trimmed with little protuberances to prevent their slipping; and when some man doubted-when a man had an idea, then those that did not have an idea put the thumb-screw upon him who did. He had doubted something. For instance, they told him Christ says you must love your enemies; he says "I do not know about that:" then they said "we will show you!" "Do unto others as you would be done by" they said is the doctrine. He doubted, "we will show you that it is!" So they put this screw on; and in the name of universal love and universal forgiveness-"pray for those who despitefully use you," they began screwing these pieces of iron into him-always done in the name of religion-always. It never was done in the name of reason, never was done in the name of science--never. No man has ever persecuted in defense of a truth--never. No man was ever persecuted except in defense of a lie-never. This man had fallen out with them about something; he did not understand it as they did. For instance, he said: "I do not believe there ever was a man whose strength was in his hair. They said: "You don't? We'll show you!" "I do not believe," he says, "that a fish ever swallowed a man to save his life." "You don't? Well, we'll show you!" And so they put this on, and generally the man would recant and say, "well, I'll take it back." Well I think I should. (Laughter.) Such men are not worth dying for. The idea of dying for a man that would tear the flesh of another on account of an honest difference of opinion-such a man is not worth dying for, he is not worth living for, and if I was in a position that I could not send a bullet through his brain, I would recant, I would say: "You write it down and I will sign it--I will admit that there is one God, or a million-suit yourself; one hell or a billion; you just write it-only stop this screw. You are not worth suffering for, you are not worth dying for and I am never going to take the part of any Lord that won't take my part-you just write it down and I'll sign it." But there was now and then a man who would not do that. He said, "No, I believe I am right, and I will die for it," and I suppose we owe what little progress we have made to a few men in all ages of the world who really stood by their convictions. The men who stood by the truth and the men who stood by a fact, they are the men that have helped raise this world (applause) and in every age there has been some sublime and tender soul who was true to his convictions and who really lived to make men better. In every age some men carried the torch of progress and handed it to some other, and it has been carried through all the dark ages of barbarism, and had it not been for such men we would have been naked and uncivilized to-night, with pictures of wild beasts tattooed on our skins, dancing around some dried snake fetish. When a man would not recant these men in the name of the love of the Lord, screwed them down to the last thread of agony and threw them into some dungeon, where in the throbbing silence of darkness they suffered the pangs of the fabled damned, and this was done in the name of civilization, love and order, and in the name of the most merciful Christ.

There are no thumb-screws now; they are rusting away; but every man in this town who is not willing that another shall do his own thinking and will try to prevent it, has in him the same hellish spirit that made and used that very instrument of torture, and the only reason he does not use it to-day is because he cannot. (Applause.) The reason that I speak here tonight is because they cannot help it. (Applause.)

I saw at the same time a beautiful little instrument for the propagation of kindness, called "The Scavenger's Daughter:"

(The lecturer here described and illustrated the construction of the instrument.)

The victim would be thrown upon that instrument and the strain upon the muscles was such that insanity would sometimes come to his relief. See what we owe to the civilizing influence of the gentlemen who have made a certain idea in metaphysics necessary to salvation-see what we owe to them.

I saw a collar of torture which they put about the neck of their victim, and inside of that there were a hundred points so that the victim could not stir without the skin being punctured with these points, and after a little while the throat would swell and suffocation would end the agony, and they would have that done in the presence of his wife and weeping children. That was all done so that finally everybody would love everybody else as his brother. (Laughter.) I saw a rack. Imagine a wagon with a windlass on each end, and each windlass armed with leather bands, and a ratchet that prevented slipping. The victim was placed upon this. May be he had denied something that some idiot said was true; may be he had a discussion-a division of the Son of the Eternal God"--that was all, and for that difference of opinion Michael Servetus was burned at a slow fire of green wood, and the wind happening to blow the flames from him instead of towards him, he was in the most terrible agony, writhing for minutes and minutes, and hours and hours, and finally he begged and implored those wretches to move him so that the wind would blow the flames against him and destroy him without much hellish agony, but they were so filled with the doctrine of "love your enemies" that they would not do it. (Laughter.) I never will, for my part, depend upon any religion that has ever shed a drop of human blood.*

Upon this rack I have described, this victim was placed, and those chains were attached to his ankles and then to his waist, and clergymen, good men! pious men! men that were shocked at the immorality of their day! they talked about playing cards and the horrible crime of dancing! Oh! how such things shocked them; men going to theaters and seeing a play written by the grandest genius the world ever has produced! how it shocked their sublime and tender souls! but they commenced turning this machine and they kept on turning until the ankles, knees, hips, elbows, shoulders and wrists were all dislocated and the victim was red with the sweat of agony, and they had standing by a physician to feel the pulse, so that the last faint flutter of life would not leave his veins. Did they wish to save his life? Yes. In mercy? No! simply that they might have the pleasure of racking him once again. That is the spirit, and it is a spirit born of the doctrine that there is upon the throne of the universe a being who free eternally damn his children, and they said: "If God is going to have the supreme happiness of burning them forever, certainly he ought not to begrudge to us the joy of burning them for an hour or two." That was their doctrine, and when I read these things it seems to me that I have suffered them myself.

When I look upon those instruments I look upon them as though I had suffered all these tortures myself. It seems to me as though I had stood upon the shore an exile and looked with tear-filled eyes towards home and native land. It seems as

*Speaking of the Inquisition, Prof . Draper says:
"With such savage alacrity did it carry out its object of protecting the interests of religion, that between 1480 and 1808 it had punished 340,000 persons, and of these nearly 32,000 had been burnt!" Conflict between Religion and Science. Page 207.

though my nails had been plucked out and into the bleeding flesh needles had been thrust; as though my eye-lids had been torn away and I had been set out in the ardent rays of the sun; as though I had been set out upon the sands of the sea and drowned by the inexorable tide; as though I had been in the dungeon waiting for the coming footsteps of relief; as though I had been upon the scaffold and seen the glittering axe falling upon me; and seen bending above me the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though I had been taken from my wife and children to the public square, where faggots had been piled around me and the flames had climbed around my limbs and scorched my eyes to blindness; as though my ashes had been scattered by all the hands of hatred; and I feel like saying, that while I live I will do what little I can to preserve and augment the rights of men, women and children; while I live I will do a little something so that they who come after me shall have the right to think and express that thought. The trouble is those who oppose us pretend they are better than we are. They are more mortal, they are kinder, they are more generous. I deny it. They are not. And if they are the ones that are to be saved in another world and if those who simply think they are honest and express that honest thought are to be damned, there will be but little originality, to say the least of it, in heaven. (Laughter.) They say they are better than we are-and to show you how much better they are I have got at home copies of some letters that passed between gentlemen high in the church several hundred years ago and the question was this: "Ought we to cut out the tongues of blasphemers before we burn them?" And they finally decided that they ought to do so, and I will tell you the reason they gave. They said if they were not cut out that while they were being burned, they might by their heresies scandalize the gentlemen who would bring the wood (laughter); they were too good to hear these things and they might be injured; and the same idea appears to prevail in this world now that they are too good and they must not be shocked. They say to us: "You must not shock us, and when you say there is no hell we are shocked. You must not say that." When I go to church and they tell me there is a hell I must not get shocked; and if they tell me that there is not only a hell, but that I am going to it, I must not be shocked. (Laughter.) Even if they take the next step and act as though they would be glad to see me there, still I must not be shocked. I will agree to keep from being shocked as long as anybody in the world they can say what they please; I will not get shocked, but let me say it. You send missionaries to Turkey and tell them that the Koran is a lie. You shock them. You tell them that Mahomet was not a prophet, you shock them. It is too bad to shock them. You go to India and you tell them that Vishnu was nothing, that Purana was nothing, that Buddha was nobody and your Brahma, he is nothing. Why do you shock these people? You should not do that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. I tell you no man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression of an honest opinion when it is kindly done, and I don't believe there is any God in the universe who has put a curtain over the fact and made it a crime for the honest hand of investigation to endeavor to draw curtain. (Applause.)

This world has not been fit to live in fifty years. There is no liberty in it-very little. Why, it is only a few years ago that all the Christian nations were engaged in the slave trade. It was not until 1808, that England abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her priests in her churches, and her judges on her benches, owned stock in slave ships, and luxuriated on the profits of piracy and murder; and when a man stood up and denounced it, they mobbed him as though he had been a common burglar or a horse thief. Think of it! It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that England abolished slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the first day of January, 1862, that Abraham Lincoln by direction of the entire North, wiped that infamy out of this country; and I never speak of Abraham Lincoln but I want to say that he was in my judgment in many respects the grandest man ever President of the United States. I say that upon his tomb there ought to be this line-and I know of no other man deserving it so well as he: "Here lies one who having been clothed with almost absolute power never abused it except on the side of mercy." Just think of it! Our churches and best people, as they call themselves, defending the institution of slavery. When I was a little boy I used to see steamers go down the Mississippi river with hundreds of men and women chained hand to hand, and even children, and men standing about them with whips in their hands and pistols in their pockets in the name of liberty, in the name of civilization and in the name of religion! I used to hear them preach to these slaves in the South and the only text they took was "Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was the salutation of the most merciful God to a man whose back was bleeding, that was the salutation of the most merciful God to the slave-mother bending over an empty cradle, to the woman from whose breast a child had been stolen-"Servants be obedient unto your masters." That was what they said to a man running for his life and for his liberty through tangled swamps and listening to the baying of bloodhounds, and when he listened for them the voice came from heaven: "Servants be obedient unto your masters." (Laughter and applause.) That is civilization. Think what slaves we have been! Think how we have crouched and cringed before wealth even! How they used to cringe in old times before a man who was rich-there are so many of them gone into bankruptcy lately that we are losing a little of our fear. (Laughter.)

We used to worship the golden calf, and the worst you can say of us now, is, we worship the gold of the calf, and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction. We used to go down on our knees to every man that held office, now he must fill it if he wishes any respect. We care nothing for the rich, except what will they do with their money? Do they benefit mankind? That is the question. You say this man holds an office. How does he fill it?--that is the question. And there is rapidly growing up in the world an aristocracy of heart and brain-the only aristocracy that has a right to exist. (Applause.) We are getting free. We are thinking in every direction. We are investigating with the microscope and the telescope. We are digging into the earth and finding souvenirs of all the ages. We are finding out something about the laws of health and disease. We are adding years to the span of human life and we are making the world fit to live in. That is what we are doing and every man that has an honest thought and expresses it, helps, and every man that tries to keep honest thoughts from being expressed is an obstruction and a hindrance.

Now if men have been slaves what shall we say of women? They have been the slaves of slaves. The meaner a man is, the better he thinks he is than a woman. (Laughter.) As a rule, you take an ignorant, brutal man-don't talk to him about a woman governing him, he don't believe it-not he; and nearly every religion of this world has been gallant enough to account for all the trouble and misfortune we have had by the crime of woman. Even if it is true, I do not care; I had rather live in a world full of trouble with the woman I love than in heaven with nobody but men. (Laughter and applause.) Nearly every religion accounts for all the trouble we have ever had by the crime of woman. I recollect one book where I read an account of what is called the creation - I am not giving the exact words--I will give the substance of it. The supreme Being thought best to make a world and one man -never thought about making a woman at that time-making a woman was a second thought, and I am free to admit that second thoughts as a rule are best. (Laughter.) He made this world and one man, and put this man in a park, or a garden, or public square, or whatever you might call it, to dress and keep it. The man had nothing to do. He moped around there as though he was waiting for a train. (Laughter.) And the supreme Being noticed that he got lonesome-I am glad he did! It occurred to him that he would make a companion, and having made the world and one man out of nothing, and having used up all the nothing (laughter) he had to take a part of the man to start the woman with--I am not giving the exact language, neither do I say the story is true--I do not know -- I would not want to deceive anybody. So sleep fell upon this man, and they took from his side a rib-the French would call it a cutlet. (Laughter.) And out of that they made a woman, and taking into consideration the amount and quality of the raw material used, I look upon it as the most successful job ever accomplished in this world. (Great laughter and applause.) I am giving just a rough outline of this story. After he got the woman done she was brought to the man-not to see how she liked him, but to see how he liked her. He liked her and they went to keeping house. Before she was made there was really nothing to do; there was no news, no politics, no religion, not even civil service reform. (Laughter.) And as the devil had not yet put in an appearance there was no chance to conciliate him. (Laughter.) They started in the house-keeping business, and they were told they could do anything they liked except eat an apple. Of course, they ate it. I would have done it myself, I know. I am satisfied I would have had an apple of that tree, if I had been there, in fifteen minutes. (Laughter.) They were caught at it, and they were turned out, and there was an extra police force put on to keep them from coming in again. And then measles, and whooping-cough, and mumps, etc.. started in the race of man, roses began to have thorns and snakes began to have teeth, and people began to fight about religion and politics, and they have been fighting and scratching each other's eyes out from that day to this. (Laughter.)

I read in another book an account of the same transaction. They tell us the Supreme Brahma made up his mind to make a man, a woman, and a world; and that he put this man and woman in the Isle of Ceylon. According to the description, it was the most beautiful isle that ever existed; it beggared the description of a Chicago land agent completely. (Laughter.) It was delightful; the branches of the trees were so arranged that when the wind swept through them they seemed like a thousand Æolian harps, and the man was named Adami, and the woman's name was Heva. This book was written about three or four thousand years before the other one, and all the commentators in this country agree that the story that was written just was copied from the one that was written last. I hope you will not let a matter of three or four thousand years interfere with your ideas on the subject. The supreme Brahma said: "Let them have a period of courtship, because it is my desire that true love always should precede marriage"-and that was so much better than lugging her up to him and saying, "Do you like her?" that upon my word I said when I read it, "if either one of these stories turn out to be true, I hope it will be this one."

They had a courtship in the starlight and moonlight, and perfume-laden air, with the nightingale singing his song of joy, and they got in love. There was nobody to bother them, no prospective fathers or mothers-in-law, no gossiping neighbors, nobody to say "young man, how do you propose to support her?"-they got in love and they were married, and they started keeping house and the Supreme Brahma said to them: "You must not leave this island." After a while the man got uneasy-wanted to go West. (Laughter.)

He went to the western extremity of the island and there the devil got up, and when he looked over on the mainland he saw such hills and valleys and torrents, and such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts robed in glory, that he went right back to Heva. Says he: "Come over here; it is a thousand times better"; says he: "let us emigrate." She said, like another woman: "No, let well enough alone; we have no rent to pay, and no taxes; we are doing very well now, let us stay where we are." But he insisted and so she went with him, and when he got to this western extremity where there was a little neck of land leading to this better land he took her on his back and walked over, and the moment he got over he heard a crash, and he looked back and this narrow neck of land had sunk into the sea, leaving here and there a rock (and those rocks are called even unto this day the footsteps of Adami) and when he looked back this beautiful mirage had disappeared. Instead of verdure and flowers there was naught but rocks and sand, and then be heard the voice of the Supreme Brahma crying out cursing them both to the lowest hell, and then it was that Adami said, "Curse me, if you choose, but not her; it was not her fault, it was mine; curse men." That is the kind of a man to start a world with. (Laughter.) And the Supreme Brahma said, "I will spare her, but I will not spare you." Then she spoke out of a breast so full of affection that she had left a legacy of love to all her daughters. "If thou wilt not save him, spare neither me, because I love him." Then the Supreme Brahma said -and I have liked him ever since-- "I will spare both and watch over you and your children forever."

Now, really this story appears to me better than the other one. It is loftier; there is more in it that I can admire. In order to show you that humanity does not belong to any particular nation, and that there are great and tender souls everywhere, let me tell you a little more that is in this book. Blessed is that man, and beloved of all the Gods who is afraid of no man, and of whom no man is afraid." Think of that kind of character! Another, "Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love; and where the one man loves the one woman the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that house and sing for joy." I think that is nearly equal to this: "If you do not want your wife give her a writing in divorcement," and make the mother of your children a houseless wanderer and a vagrant-nearly as good as that. I believe that marriage should be a perfect partnership; that woman should have all the rights that man has, and one more-the right to be protected, I believe in marriage. It took hundreds and thousands of years for woman to get from a state of abject slavery up to the height even of marriage. I have not the slightest respect for the ideas of those short-haired women and long-haired men (laughter) who denounce the institution of the family, who denounce the institution of marriage; but I hold in greatest contempt the husband who would enslave his wife. I hold in greater contempt the man who is anything in his family except love and tenderness, and kindness. (Applause) I say it took hundreds of years for woman to come from a state of slavery to marriage; and ladies, the chains that were upon your necks and the bracelets that were put upon your arms were iron, and they have been changed by the touch of the wand of civilization to shining, glittering gold. Woman came from a condition of abject slavery and thousands and thousands of them are in that condition now. I believe marriage should be a perfect and equal partnership. I do not like a man who thinks he is boss. The fellow in the dug-out was always talking about being boss I do not like a man who thinks he is the head of the family. I do not like a man who thinks he has got authority and that the woman belongs to him-that wants for his wife a slave. I would not have a slave for my wife. I would not want the love of man that is not great enough, grand enough, and splendid enough to be free. I will never give to any woman my heart upon whom I afterwards would put chains. Do you know sometimes I think generosity is about the only virtue there is. How I do hate a man that has to be begged and importuned every minute for a few cents by his wife "Give me a dollar?" "What did you do with that fifty cents I gave you last Christmas?" (Laughter.) if you make your wife a perpetual beggar, what kind of children do you expect to raise with a beggar for their mother? If you want great children, if you want to people this world with great any grand men and women they must be born of love and liberty. I have known men that would trust a woman with their heart-if you call that thing, which pushes their blood around, a heart, and with their honor-if you call that fear of getting into the penitentiary, honor-I have known men that would trust that heart and that honor with a woman, but not their pocket-book not a dollar bill. When I see a man of that kind, I think they know better than I do which of these three articles is the most valuable. (Laughter.) I believe if you have got a dollar in the world and you have got to spend it, spend it like a man; spend at like a king, like a prince. If you have to spend it, spend it as though it was a dried leaf, and you were the owner of unbounded forests. I had rather be a beggar and spend my last dollar like a king than be a king and spend my money like a beggar. (Applause) What is it worth compared with the love of a splendid woman? People tell me that is a very good doctrine for rich folks, but it won't do for poor folks. I tell you that there is more love in the huts and homes of the poor, than in the mansions of the rich, and the meanest hut with love in it is a palace fit for the Gods, and a palace without that, is a den only fit for wild beasts. The man who has the love of one splendid woman is a rich man. Joy is wealth, and love is the legal tender of the soul! Love is the only thing that will pay ten per cent. to borrower and lender both; and if some men were as ashamed of appearing cross in public as they are of appearing tender at home, this world would be infinitely better. I think you can make your home a heaven if you want to-you can make up your minds to that. When a man comes home let him come home like a ray of light in the night bursting through the doors and illuminating the darkness. What right has a man to assassinate joy and murder happiness in the sanctuary of love-to be a cross man, a peevish man-is that the way he courted? Was there always something ailing him? Was he too nervous to hear her speak? When I see a man of that kind I am always sorry that doctors know so much about preserving life as they do. (Laughter.) It is not necessary to be rich, nor powerful, nor great to be a success; and neither is it necessary to have your name between the putrid lips of rumor to be great. We have had a false standard of success. In the years when I was a little boy we read in our books that no fellow was a success that did not make a fortune or get a big office, and he generally was a man that slept about three hours a night. They never put down in the books the names of those gentlemen that succeeded in life that slept all they wanted to; and we all thought that we could not sleep to exceed three or four hours if we ever expected to be anything in this world. (Laughter.) We have had a wrong standard. The happy man is the successful man; and the man who makes somebody else happy, is a happy man. The man that has gained the love of one good, splendid pure woman, his life has been a success. No matter if he dies in the ditch, and if he gets to be a crowned monarch of the world, and never had the love of one splendid heart, his life has been an ashen vapor.

A little while ago I stood by the tomb of the first Napoleon, a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity, and here was a great circle, and in the bottom there, in a sarcophagus, rested at last the ashes of that restless man. I looked at that tomb, and I thought about the career of the greatest soldier of the modern world. As I looked in imagination I could see him walking up and down the banks of the Seine contemplating suicide. I could see him at Toulon; I could see him at Paris, putting down the mob; I could see him at the head of the army of Italy; I could see him crossing the bridge of Lodi, with the tricolor in his hand; I saw him in Egypt, fighting battles under the shadow of thy Pyramids; I saw him returning; I saw him conquer the Alps, and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of Italy; I saw him at Marengo, I saw him at Austerlitz; I saw him in Russia where the infantry of the snow and the blast smote his legions, when death rode the icy winds of winter. I saw him at Leipsic; hurled back upon Paris; banished; and I saw him escape from Elba and retake an empire by the force of his genius, I him at the field of Waterloo, where fate and chance combined to wreck the fortunes of their former king. I saw him at St. Helena both his hands behind his back, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea, and I thought of all the widows he had made, of all the orphans, of all the tears that had been shed for his glory; and I thought of the woman, the only woman who ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition-and I said to myself, as I gazed, I would rather have been a French peasant and worn wooden shoes, and lived in a little hut with a vine running over the door and the purple grapes growing red in the amorous kisses of the autumn sun-I would rather have been that poor French peasant, to sit in my door, with my wife knitting by my side and my children upon my knees with their arms around my neck--I would rather have lived and died unnoticed and unknown except by those who loved me, and gone down to the voiceless silence of the dreamless dust--I would rather have been that French peasant than to have been that imperial impersonation of force and murder who covered Europe with blood and tears. (Great applause.) I tell you I had rather make somebody happy, I would rather have the love of somebody; I would rather go to the forest, far away, and build me a little cabin-build it myself and daub it with mud, and live there with my wife and children; I had rather go there and live by myself-our little family-and have a little path that led down to the spring, where the water bubbled out day and night like a little poem from the heart of the earth; a little hut with some hollyhocks at the corner, with their mannered bosoms open to the sun, and with the thrush in the air, like a song of joy in the morning; I would rather live there and have some lattice work across the window, so that the sunlight would fall checkered on the baby in the cradle; I would rather live there and have my soul erect and free, than to live in a palace of gold and wear the crown of imperial power and know that my soul was slimy with hypocrisy. It is not necessary to be rich and great and powerful in order to be happy. If you will treat your wife like a splendid flower, she will fill your life with a perfume and with joy. I believe in the democracy of the fireside, I believe in the republicanism of home, in the equality of man and woman, in the equality of husband and wife, and for this I am denounced by the sentinels upon the walls of Zion (Laughter) They say there must be a head to the family. I say no-equal rights for man and wife, and where there is really love there is liberty, and where the idea of authority comes in you will find that love has spread its pinions and flown forever. It is a splendid thing for me to think that when a woman really loves a man he never grows old. In her eyes, she always sees the gallant gentleman that won her hand and heart, and when a man really and truly loves a woman she does not grow old to him; through the wrinkles of years he sees the face he loved and won. That is all there is in this world-all the rest amounts to nothing--it is a tale told by an idiot signifying nothing. You take from the family love, and nothing is left. There must be equality; there must be no master; there must be no servant. There must be equality and kindness. The man should be infinitely tender towards the woman-and why? --because she cannot go at hard work, she cannot make her own living. She has squandered her wealth of beauty and youth upon him.

Now, if women had been slaves, what do you say about children? Children have been the slaves of the slaves of slaves I know children that turn pale with fright when they hear their mother's voice; children of property, children of crime, children of subcellars, children of the narrow streets, the flotsam and jetsam upon the weld, rude sea of life -- my heart goes out to them one and all, I say they have all the rights we have and one more-the right to be protected. I believe in governing children by kindness, by love, by tenderness. If a child commits a fault take it to your arms, let your heart beat against its heart, don't go and talk to it about hell and the bankruptcy of the universe. If your child tells a lie-what of it? Be honest with the child, tell him you have told hundreds of them yourself (Laughter) Then your child will not be afraid to tell you when it commits a fault, it will not regard you as old perfection, until it gets a few years older, and finds you are an old hypocrite -- (laughter) --and you cannot put a thick enough veil upon you but what the eyes of childhood will peep through it; they will see; they will find out; and when your child tells a lie, examine yourself, and in all probability you will and you have been a tyrant. A tyrant father will have liars for his children. A liar is born of tyranny on the one hand and fear on the other. Truth comes from the lips of courage. It is born in confidence and honor. If you want a child to tell you the truth you want to be a faithful man yourself. You go at your little child, five or six years old, with a stick in your hand-what is he to do? Tell the truth? Then he will get whipped. What is he to do? I think mother nature for putting ingenuity in the mind of a little child so that when it is attacked by a brutal parent it throws up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie. That being done by nations it is called strategy (laughter) and many a general wears his honors for having practiced it; and will you deny it to little children to protect themselves from brutal parents? Supposing a man as much larger as we are larger than a child would come at us with a liberty-pole in his hand (prolonged laughter) and would shout in tones of thunder, "Who broke that plate?" everyone of us -including myself-would just stand right up and swear either that we never saw that plate, or that it was cracked when we got it. (renewed laughter) Give a child a chance; there is no other way to have children tell the truth-tell the truth to them-keep your contracts with your children the same as you would to your banker. I was up at Grand Rapids, Michigan, the other day. There was a gentleman there, and his wife, who had promised to take their little boy for a ride every night for ten days, or every day for ten days, but they did not do it. They slipped out to the barn and they went without him. The day before I was there they played the same game on him again. He is a nice little boy, an American boy, a boy with brains, one of those boys that don't take the hatchet-story as a fact; (laughter) he had his own ideas. They fooled him again, and they came around the corner as big as life, man and wife. The little fellow was standing on the door-step with his nurse, and he looked at them, and he made this remark: "There go the two damnedest liars in Grand Rapids" I merely tell you this story to show you that children have level heads, they understand this business. Teach your children to tell you the truth-tell them the truth. If there is one here that ever intends to whip his child I have a favor to ask, have your photograph taken when you are in the act, with your red and vulgar face, your brow corrugated, pretending you would rather be whipped yourself. Have the child's photograph taken too, with his eyes screaming with tears, and his chin dimpled with fear as a little sheet of water struck by a sudden cold wind; and if your child should die I cannot think of a sweeter way to spend an afternoon than to go to the graveyard in the autumn, when the maples are clad in pink and gold, when the little scarlet runners come like poems opt of the breast of the earth-go there and sit down and look at that photograph and think of the flesh now dust, and how you caused it to writhe in pain and agony. I will tell you what I am doing; I am doing what little I can to save the flesh of children. You have no right to whip them. It is not the way; and yet some Christians drive their children from their doors if they do wrong, especially if it is a sweet, tender girl--I believe there is no instance on record of any veal being given for the return of a girl. (Laughter.) Some Christians drive them from their doors and then go down upon their knees and ask God to take care of their children! I will never ask God to take care of my children unless I am doing my level best in that same direction. Some Christians act as though they thought when the Lord said, "Suffer little children to come unto me" that he had a rawhide under his mantle-they act as if they thought so. That is all wrong. I tell my children this: Go where you may, commit what crime you may, fall to what depths of degradation you may, I can never shut my arms, my heart or my door to you. As long as I live you shall have one sincere friend; do not be afraid to tell anything wrong you have done; ten to one if I have not done the same thing. I am not perfection, and if it is necessary to sin in order to have sympathy, I am glad I have committed sin enough to have sympathy. The sternness of perfection I do not want. I am going to live so that my children can come to my grave and truthfully say, "He who sleeps here never gave us one moment of pain." Whether you call that religion or infidelity, suit yourselves; that is the way I intend to do it.

When I was a little fellow most everybody thought that some days were too sacred for the young ones to enjoy themselves in. That was the general idea. Sunday used to commence Saturday night at sundown, under the old text. "The evening and the morning were the first day." They commenced then, I think, to get a good ready. (Laughter.) When the sun went down Saturday night, darkness ten thousand times deeper than ordinary night fell upon that house. The boy that looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. (Laughter.) You could not crack hickory nuts that night, and if you were caught chewing gum it was another evidence of the total depravity of the human heart. (Laughter.) It was a very solemn evening. We would sometimes sing "Another day has passed." Everybody looked as though they had the dyspepsia you know lots of people think they are pious, just because they are bilious, as Mr. Hood says. (Laughter.) It was a solemn night, and the next morning the solemnity had increased. Then we went to Church, and the minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet high. If it was in the winter there was no fire; it was not thought proper to be comfortable while you were thanking the Lord. The minister commenced at firstly and ran up to about twenty-fourthly, and then he divided it up again; and then he made some concluding remarks, and then he said lastly, and when he said lastly he was about half through. (Laughter.) Then we had what we called the catechism-the chief end of man. I think that has a tendency to make a boy kind of bubble up cheerfully. (Smiles.)

We sat along on a bench with our feet about eight inches from the floor. The minister said, "boys, do you know what becomes of the wicked?" We all answered as cheerfully as grasshoppers singing in Minnesota, "Yes, sir." "Do you know, boys, that you all ought to go to hell?" "Yes, sir." As a final test: "Boys, would you be willing to go to hell if it was God's will?" And every little liar said, "Yes, sir." The dear old minister used to try to impress upon our minds about how long we would stay there after we got there, and he used to say in an awful tone of voice -- do you know I think that is what gives them the bronchitis-that tone--you never heard of an auctioneer having it--"Suppose that once in a billion of years a bird were to come from some far, distant clime and carry off in its bill a grain of sand, then the time came when the last animal matter of which this mundane sphere is composed would be carried away," said he, "boys, by that time in hell it would not be sun up." (Laughter.) We had this sermon in the morning and the same one in the afternoon, only he commenced at the other end. Then we started home full of doctrine-we went sadly and solemnly back. If it was in the summer and the weather was good and we had been good boys, they used to take us down to the graveyard, and to cheer us up we had a little conversation about coffins, and shrouds, and worms, and bones, and dust, and I must admit that it did cheer me up when I looked at those sunken graves, those stones, those names, half effaced with the decay of years. I felt cheered, for I said, "This thing can't last always." Then we had to read a good deal. We we're not allowed to read joke books or anything of that kind. We read Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," Fox's "Book of Martyrs," Milton's "History of the Waldenses," and Jenkins "On the Atonement." I generally read Jenkins; (laughter) and I have often thought that the atonement ought to be pretty broad in its provisions to cover the case of a man that would write a book like that for a boy. Then we used to go and see how the sun was getting on-when the sun was down the thing was over. I would sit three or four hours reading Jenkins, and then go out and the sun would not have gone down perceptibly. I used to think it stuck there out of simple, pure cussedness. But it went down at last, it had to; which was a part of the plan, and as the last rim of light would sink below the horizon, off would go our hats and we would give three cheers for liberty once again. (Laughter.) I do not believe in making Sunday hateful for children. I believe in allowing them to be happy, and no day can be so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make it holier still. (Applause.) There is no God in the heavens that is pleased at the sadness of childhood. You cannot make me believe that. You fill their poor, little, sweet hearts with the fearful doctrines of hell. A little child goes out into the garden; is a tree covered with a glory of blossoms and the child leans against it, and there is a little bird on the bough singing and swinging, and the waves of melody run out of its tiny throat, thinking about four little speckled eggs in the nest warmed by the breast of its mate, and the air is filled with perfume, and that little child leans against that tree and thinks about hell and the worm that never dies-think of filling the mind of a child with that infamous dogma!

Where was that doctrine of hell born? Where did it come from? It came from that gentleman in the dugout; it was a souvenir from the lower animals. I honestly believe that the doctrine of hell was born in the glittering eyes of snakes that run in frightful coils watching for their prey. I believe it was born in the yelping and howling and growling and snarling of will beasts. I believe it was born in the grin of hyenas and in the malicious chatter of depraved apes. I despise it, I defy it and I hate it; and when the great ship freighted with the world goes down in the night of death, chaos and disaster, I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of pushing from my breast my wife and children and paddling off in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with those I love and with those who love me. I will go down with the ship and with my race. I will go where there is sympathy. I will go with those I love. Nothing can make me believe that there is any being that is going to burn and torment and damn his children forever. No, sir! You will never make me believe you can divide the world up into saints and sinners, and that the saints are all going to heaven and the others to hell! I don't believe that you can draw the line. You are sometimes in the presence of a great disaster; there is a fire; at the fourth story window you see the white face of a woman with a child in her arms, and humanity calls out for somebody to go to the rescue through that smoke and flames maybe death. They don't call for a Baptist, nor a Presbyterian, nor a Methodist, but humanity calls for a man. And all at once out steps somebody that nobody ever did think was much, not a very good man, and yet he springs up the ladder and is lost in the smoke, and a moment afterward he emerges and the cruel serpents of fire climb and hiss around his brave form, but he goes on and you see that woman and child in his arms, and you see them come down and they are handed to the bystanders, and he has fainted, maybe, and the crowd stand hushed, as they always do, in the presence of a grand action, and a moment after the air is rent with a cheer. Tell me that that man is going to hell, who is willing to lose his life merely to keep a woman and child from the torment of a moment's flame-tell me that he is going to hell? I tell you that it is a falsehood, and if anybody says so he is mistaken.

I have seen upon the battlefield a boy sixteen years of age struck by the fragment of a shell and life oozing slowly from the ragged lips of his death-wound, and I have heard him and seen him die with a curse upon his lips and he had the face of his mother in his heart. Do you tell me that that boy left that field of battle where he died that the flag of his country might wave forever in the air-do you tell me that he went from that field where he lost his life in defense of the liberties of men to an eternal hell? I tell you it is infamous!-and such a doctrine as that would tarnish the reputation of a hyena and smirch the fair fame of an anaconda. (Laughter.) Let us see whether we are to believe it or not. We had a war a little while ago and there was a draft made and there was many a good Christian hired another fellow to take his place, hired one that was wicked, hired a sinner to go to hell in his place for five hundred dollars! (Laughter.) While if he was killed he would go to heaven. Think of that. Think of a man walling to do that for five hundred dollars! I tell you when you come down to it they have got too much heart to believe it; they say they do, but they do not appreciate it. They do not believe it. They would go crazy if they did. They would go insane. If a woman believed it, looking upon her little dimpled darling in the cradle, and said, "Nineteen chances in twenty I am raising fuel for hell," she would go crazy. They don't believe it, and can't believe it. The old doctrine was that the angels in heaven would become happier as they locked upon those in hell. That is not the doctrine now; we have civilized it. That is not the doctrine-what is the doctrine now? The doctrine is that those in heaven can look upon the agonies of those in hell, whether it is a fire or whatever it is, without having the happiness of those in heaven decreased-that is the doctrine. That is preached to-day in every orthodox pulpit in Harrisburg. Let me put one case and I will be through with this branch of the subject. A husband and wife love each other. The husband is a good fellow and the wife a splendid woman. They live and love each other and all at once he is taken sick, and they watch day after day and night after night around his bedside until their property is wasted and finally she has to go to work, and she works through eyes blinded with tears, and the sentinel of love watches at the bedside of her prince, and at the least breath or the least motion she is awake; and she attends him night after night and day after day for years, and finally he dies, and she has him in her arms and covers his wasted face with the tears of agony and love. He is a believer and she is not. He dies and she buries him and puts flowers above his grave, and she goes there in the twilight of evening and she takes her children, and tells her little boys and girls through her tears how brave and how true and how tender their father was, and really she dies and she goes to hell, because she was not a believer; and he goes to the battlements of heaven and looks over and sees the woman who loved him with all the wealth of her love, and whose tears made his dead face holy and sacred, and he looks upon her in the agonies of hell without having his happiness diminished in the least. With all due respect to everybody I say, damn any such doctrine as that (Great sensation.) It is infamous! it never ought to be preached, it never ought to be believed We ought to be true to our hearts, and the best revelation of the infinite is the human heart.

Now, I come back to where I started from. They used to think that a certain day was too good for a child to be happy in, so they filled the imagination of this child with these horrors of hell. I said, and I say again, no day can by so sacred but that the laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred still. Strike with hand of fire, oh, weird musician, thy harp, strung with Apollo's golden hair; fill the vast cathedral isles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch the skies, with moonlit waves, and charm the lovers wandering on the vine-clad hills; but know, your sweetest strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy laugh, the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every heart with joy; on, rippling river of life, thou art the blessed boundary-line between the beasts and man, and every wayward wave of thine doth drown some fiend of care; oh, laughter, divine daughter of joy, make dimples enough in the cheeks of the world to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.

I am opposed to any religion that makes them melancholy, that makes children sad, and that fills the human heart with shadow.

Give a child a chance. When I was a boy we always went to bed when we were not sleepy, and always got up when we were sleepy (Laughter) Let a child commence at which end of the day they please, that is their business; they know more about it than all the doctors in the world. The voice of nature when a man is free, is the voice of right, but when his passions have been dammed up by custom, the moment that is withdrawn, he rushes to some excess. Let him be free from the first. Let your children grow in the free air and they will fill your house with perfume. Do not create a child to be a post set in an orthodox row; raise investigators and thinkers, not disciples and followers; cultivate reason, not faith; cultivate investigation, not superstition; and if you have any doubt yourself about a thing being so, tell them about it? don't tell them the world was made in six days-if you think six days means six good whiles, tell them six good whiles. If you have any doubts abort anybody being in a furnace and not being burned, or even getting uncomfortably warm, tell them so-be honest about it. If you look upon the jawbone of a donkey as not a good weapon, say so. Give a child a chance. If you thank a man never went to sea in a fish, tell them so. It won't make them any worse. Be honest that is all; don't cram their heads with things that will take them years and years to unlearn; tell them facts-it is just as easy. It is as easy to find out botany, and astronomy, and geology, and history-it is as easy to end out all these things as to cram their minds with things you know nothing about and where a child knows what the name of a flower is when it sees it, the name of a bird and all those things, the world becomes interesting everywhere, and they do not pass by the flowers-they are not deaf to all the songs of birds, simply because they are walking along thinking about hell. (Laughter.) I tell you, this is a pretty good world if we only love somebody in it, if we only make somebody happy, if we are only honor bright in it, if we have no fear. That is my doctrine. I like to hear children at the table telling what big things they have seen during the day; I like to hear their merry voices. mingling with the clatter of knives and forks. I had rather hear that than any operas that was ever put on the stage. I hate this idea of authority. I hate dignity. I never saw a dignified man that was not after all an old idiot. Dignity is a mask; a dignified man is afraid that you will know he does not know everything. A man of sense and argument is always willing to admit what he doesn't know-why? -because there is so much that he does know, and that is the first step towards learning anything-willingness to admit what you don't know and when you don't understand a thing, ask-no matter how small and silly it may look to other people -ask, and after that you know. A man never is in a state of mind that he can learn until he gets that dignified nonsense out of him, and so, I say let us treat our children with perfect kindness and tenderness.

Now, then, I believe in absolute intellectual liberty; that a man has a right to think, and think wrong, provided he does the best he can to think right-that is all. I have no

*"We know of no difference between matter and spirit, because we know nothing with certainty about either. Why trouble ourselves about matters of which, however important they may be, we do know nothing and can know nothing?" -Huxley.

right to say that Mr. Smith shall not think; Mr. Smith has no right to say I shall not think; I have no right to go and pull a clergyman out of his pulpit and say "You shall not preach that doctrine," but I have just as much right to lie about a clergyman, and with great modesty I claim-and with some timidity that he has no right to slander me-that's all.

I claim that every man and wife are equal, except that she has a right to be protected; that there is nothing like the democracy of the home and the republicanism of the fireside, and that a man should study to make his wife's life one perpetual poem of joy; that there should be nothing but kindness and goodness; and then I say that children should be governed by love, by kindness, by tenderness, and by the sympathy of love, kindness and tenderness. That is the religion I have got, and it is good enough for me whether it suits anybody else in the world or not. I think it is altogether more important to love my children than the twelve apostles-that is my doctrine. I may be wrong, but that is it. I think more of the living than I do of the dead. This world is for the living. The grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. The living have a right to control this world. I think a good deal more of to-day than I do of yesterday, and I think more of to-morrow than I do of this day; because, it is nearly gone-that is the way I feel, and this is my creed. The time to be happy is now, the way to be happy is to make somebody else happy; and the place to be happy is here. I never will consent to drink skim milk here with the promise of cream somewhere else. (Laughter.)

Now, my friends, I have some excuses to offer for the race to which I belong.

In the first place, this world is not very well adapted to raising good people, there is but one-quarter of it land to start with, it is three times as well adapted to subculture as it is to man, and of that one-quarter there is but a small belt where they can raise men of genius. There is one strap from which all the men and women of genius come. When you go too far north you find no brain; when you go too far south you find no genius, and there never has been a high decree of civilization except where there is winter. I say that winter is the father and mother of the fireside, the family of nations, and around that fireside blossom the fruits of our race. In a country where they don't need any bed-clothes except the clouds, revolution is the normal condition-not much civilization there. When in the winter I go by a house where the curtain is a little bit drawn, and I look in there and see children poking the fire and wishing they had as many dollars or knives or something else as there are sparks; when I see the old man smoking and the smoke curling above his head, like incense from the altar of domestic peace, the other children reading or doing something, and the old lady with her needle and shears--I never pass such a scene that I do not feel a little ache of joy in my heart. A while ago they were talking about annexing Santo Domingo. They said it was the finest soil in the world, and so on. Says I, "It don't raise the right kind of food; you take five thousand of the best people in the world and let them settle there and you will see the second generation barefooted, with their hair sticking out of the top of their sombreros; you will see them riding bare-backed, with a rooster under each arm, going to a cock-fight on Sunday. (Laughter.) That is one excuse I have.

Another is, I think we came from the lower animals. I am not dead sure of it. On that question I stand about eight to seven. (Laughter.) If there is nothing of the snake, or hyena, or jackal in man, why would he cut his brother's throat for a difference of belief? Why would he build dungeons and burn the flesh of his brother man with red-hot irons? I think we came from the lower animals. When I first heard that doctrine I did not like it. I felt sorry for our English friends, who would have to trace their pedigree back to the Duke of Ourang-outang, or the Earl of Chimpanzee. But I have read so much about rudimentary bones and rudimentary muscles that I began to doubt about it. Says I: "What do you mean by rudimentary muscles?" They say " A muscle that has gone into bankruptcy--" "Was it a large muscle?" "Yes." "What did our forefathers use it for?" They say: "To flap their ears with." After I found that out I was astonished to find that they had become rudimentary; I know so many people for whom it would be handy to-day, so many people where that would have been on an exact level with their intellectual development. (laughter.) So after awhile I began to like it, and says I to myself: "You have got to come to it." I thought after all I had rather belong to a race of people that came from skulless vertebræ in the dim Laurentian period, that wiggled without knowing they were wiggling, that began to develop and came up by a gradual development until they struck this gentleman in the dug-out coming up slowly-up up-up-until, for instance, they produced such a man as Shakespeare-he who harvested all the fields of dramatic thought, and after whom all others have been only gleaners of straw, he who found the human intellect dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it become a palace-producing him and hundreds of others I might mention-with the angels of progress leaning over the far horizon beckoning this race of work and thought-I had rather belong to a race commencing at the skulless vertebrae producing the gentleman in the dug-out and so on up than to have descended from a perfect pair, upon which the Lord has lost money from that day to this. (Laughter.) I had rather belong to a race that is going up than to one that is going down. I would rather belong to one that commenced at the soulless vertebrae and started for perfection, than to belong to one that started from perfection and started for the soulless vertebrae. These are the excuses I have for my race, and taking everything into consideration, I thank we have done extremely well.

Let us have more liberty and free thought. Free thought will give us truth. It is too early in the history of the world to write a creed. Our fathers were intellectual slaves; our fathers were intellectual serfs. There never has been a free generation on the globe. Every creed you have got bears the mark of whip, and chain, and fagot. There has been no creed written by a free brain. Wait until we have had two or three generations of liberty and it will then be time enough to seize the swift horse of progress by the bridle and say-thus far and no farther; and in the meantime let us be kind to each other. We are all travelers on the great plain we call life and there is nobody quite sure what road to take-not just dead sure, you know. There are lots of guide-boards on the plain and you find thousands of people swearing to-day that their guide-board is the only board that shows the right direction. I go and talk to them and they say: "You go that way, or you will be damned." I go to another and they say; "You go this way, or you will be damned." I find them all fighting and quarreling and beating each other, and then I say: "Let us cut down all these guideboards." "What," they say, "leave us without any guide-boards?" I say: "Yes. Let every man take the road he thinks is right; and let everybody else wish him a happy journey; let us part friends." I say to you tonight my friends, that I have no malice upon this subject-not a particle; I simply wish to express my thoughts. The world has grown better just in proportion as it is happier; the world has grown better just in proportion as it has lost superstition; the world has grown better just in the proportion that the sacerdotal class has lost its influence-just exactly; the world has grown better just in proportion that secular ideas have taken possession of the world. The world has grown better just in proportion that it has ceased talking about the visions of the clouds, and talked about the realities of the earth. The world has grown better just in the proportion that it has grown free, and I want to do what little I can an my feeble way to add another flame to the torch of progress. I do not know, of course, what will come, but if I have said anything tonight that will make a husband love his wife better, I am satisfied; if I have said anything that will make a wife love her husband better, I am satisfied; if I have said anything that will add one more ray of Joy to life, I am satisfied; if I have said anything that will save the tender flesh of a child from a blow, I am satisfied; if I have said anything that will make us more willing to extend to others the right we claim for ourselves, I am satisfied. I do not know what inventions are in the brain of the future; I do not know what garments of glory may be woven for the world in the loom of the years to be; we are just on the edge of the great ocean of discovery. I do not know what is to be discovered; I do not know what science will do for us. I do know that science did just take a handful of sand and make the telescope, and with it read all the starry leaves of heaven; I know that science took the thunderbolts from the hands of Jupiter, and now the electric spark, freighted with thought and love, flashes under the waves of the sea; I know that science stole a tear from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a giant that turns with tireless arms the countless wheels of toil; I know that science broke the chains from human limbs and gave us instead the forces of nature for our slaves; I know that we have made the attraction of gravitation work for us; we have made the lightnings our messengers; we have taken advantage of fire and flames and wind and sea; these slaves have no backs to be whipped; they have no hearts to be lacerated; they have no children to be stolen, no cradles to be violated. I know that science has given us better houses; I know it has given us better pictures and better books; I know it has given us better wives and better husbands, and more beautiful children. I know it has enriched a thousand-fold our lives; and for that reason I am in favor of intellectual liberty. I know not, I say, what discoveries may lead the world to glory; but I do know that from the infinite sea of the future never a greater or grander blessing will strike this bank and shoal of time, than liberty for man, woman and child.

Ladies and gentlemen, I have delivered this lecture a great many times; clergymen have attended, and editors of religious newspapers, and they have gone away and written in their papers and declared in their pulpits that in this lecture I advocated universal adultery; they have gone away and said it was obscene and disgusting. Between me and my clerical maligners, between me and my religious slanderers, I leave you, ladies and gentlemen, to Judge.