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          Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201

                The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL

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                         THE LIBERTY OF
                      MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

                              1877

           LIBERTY SUSTAINS THE SAME RELATION TO MIND
                   THAT SPACE DOES TO MATTER.

     There is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is the child of
intelligence.

     The history of man is simply the history of slavery, of
injustice and brutality, together with the means by which he has,
through the dead and desolate years, slowly and painfully advanced.
He has been the sport and prey of priest and king, the food of
superstition and cruel might. Crowned force has governed ignorance
through fear. Hypocrisy and tyranny -- two vultures -- have fed
upon the liberties of man. From all these there has been, and is,
but one means of escape -- intellectual development. Upon the back
of industry has been the whip. Upon the brain have been the fetters
of superstition. Nothing has been left undone by the enemies of
freedom. Every art and artifice, every cruelty and outrage has been
practiced and perpetrated to destroy the rights of man. In this
great struggle every crime has been rewarded and every virtue has
been punished. Reading, writing, thinking and investigating have
all been crimes.

     Every science has been an outcast.

     All the altars and all the thrones united to arrest the
forward march of the human race. The king said that mankind must
not work for themselves. The priest said that mankind must not
think for themselves. One forged chains for the hands, the other
for the soul. Under this infamous regime the eagle of the human
intellect was for ages a slimy serpent of hypocrisy.

     The human race was imprisoned. Through some of the prison bars
came a few struggling rays of light. Against these bars Science
pressed its pale and thoughtful face, wooed by the holy dawn of
human advancement. Bar after bar was broken away. A few grand men
escaped and devoted their lives to the liberation of their fellows.

     Only a few years ago there was a great awakening of the human
mind. Men began to inquire by what right a crowned robber made them
work for him? The man who asked this question was called a traitor.
Others asked by what right does a robed hypocrite rule my thought? 

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Such men were called infidels. The priest said, and the king said,
where is this spirit of investigation to stop? They said then and
they say now, that it is dangerous for man to be free. I deny it.
Out on the intellectual sea there is room enough for every sail. In
the intellectual air there is space enough for every wing.

     The man who does not do his own thinking is a slave, and is a
traitor to himself and to his fellowmen.

     Every man should stand under the blue and the stars, under the
infinite flag of nature, the peer of every other man.

     Standing in the presence of the Unknown, all have the same
right to think, and all are equally interested in the great
questions of origin and destiny. All I claim, all I plead for, is
liberty. Liberty of thought and expression. That is all. I do not
pretend to tell what is absolutely true, but what I think is true.
I do not pretend to tell all the truth.

     I do not claim that I have floated level with the heights of
thought, or that I have descended to the very depths of things. I
simply claim that what ideas I have, I have a right to express; and
that any man who denies that right to me is an intellectual thief
and robber. That is all.

     Take those chains from the human soul. Break those fetters. If
I have no right to think, why have I a brain? If I have no such
right, have three or four men, or any number who may get together
and sign a creed, and build a house, and put a steeple upon it, and
a bell in it -- have they the right to think? The good men, the
good women, are tired of the whip and lash in the realm of thought.
They remember the chain and fagot with a shudder. They are free,
and they give liberty to others, whoever claims any right that he
is unwilling to accord to his fellow-men is dishonest and infamous.

     In the good old times, our fathers had the idea that they
could make people believe to suit them. Our ancestors, in the ages
that are gone, really believed that by force you could convince a
man. You cannot change the conclusion of the brain by torture; nor
by social ostracism. But I will tell you what you can do by these,
and what you have done. You can make hypocrites by the million. You
can make a man say that he has changed his mind; but he remains of
the same opinion still. Put fetters all over him; crush his feet in
iron boots; stretch him to the last gasp upon the holy rack; burn
him, if you please, but his ashes will be of the same opinion
still.

     Our fathers in the good old times -- and the best thing I can
say about them is that they have passed away -- had an idea that
they could force men to think their way. That idea is still
prevalent in many parts, even of this country. Even in our day some
extremely religious people say, "We will not trade with that man;
we will not vote for him; we will not hire him if he is a lawyer;
we will die before we will take his medicine if he is a doctor; we 





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will not invite him to dinner; we will socially ostracize him; he
must come to our church; he must believe our doctrines; he must
worship our god or we will not in any way contribute to his
support."

     In the old times of which I have spoken they desired to make
all men think exactly alike. All the mechanical ingenuity of the
world cannot make two clocks run exactly alike, and how are you
going to make hundreds of millions of people, differing in brain
and disposition, in education and aspiration, in conditions and
surroundings, each clad in a living robe of passionate flesh -- how
are you going to make them think and feel alike? If there is an
infinite god, one who made us, and wishes us to think alike, why
did he give a spoonful of brains to one, and a magnificent
intellectual development to another? Why is it that we have all
degrees of intelligence, from orthodoxy to genius, if it was
intended that all should think and feel alike?

     I used to read in books how our fathers persecuted mankind.
But I never appreciated it. I read it but it did not burn itself
into my soul. I did not really appreciate the infamies that have
been committed in the name of religion, until I saw the iron
arguments that Christians used. I saw the Thumbscrew -- two little
pieces of iron, armed on the inner surfaces with protuberances, to
prevent their slipping; through each end a screw uniting the two
pieces. And when some man denied the efficacy of baptism, or may-be
said, "I do not believe that a fish ever swallowed a man to keep
him from Drowning, then they put his thumb between these pieces of
iron and in the name of love and universal forgiveness, began to
screw these pieces together. When this was done most men said, "I
will recant." Probably I should have done the same. Probably I
would have said: "Stop; I will admit anything that you wish; I will
admit that there is one god or a million, one hell or a billion;
suit yourself; but stop."

     But there was now and then a man who would not swerve the
breadth of a hair. There was now and then some sublime heart,
willing to die for an intellectual conviction. Had it not been for
such men, we would be savages to-night. Had it not been for a few
brave, heroic souls in every age, we would have been cannibals,
with pictures of wild beasts tattooed upon our flesh, dancing
around some dried snake fetich.

     Let us thank every good and noble man who stood so grandly, so
proudly, in spite of opposition, of hatred and death, for what he
believed to be the truth.

     Heroism did not excite the respect of our fathers. The man who
would not recant was not forgiven. They screwed the thumbscrews
down to the last pang, and then threw their victim into some
dungeon where, in the throbbing silence and darkness, he might
suffer the agonies of the fabled damned. This was done in the name
of love -- in the name of mercy -- in the name of the compassionate
Christ.

     I saw, too, what they called the Collar of Torture. Imagine a
circle of iron, and on the inside a hundred points almost as sharp 
as needles. This argument was fastened about the throat of the 

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sufferer. Then he could not walk, nor sit down, nor stir without
the neck being punctured by these points. In a little while. the
throat would begin to swell, and suffocation would end the agonies
of that man. This man, it may be, had committed the crime of 
saying, with tears upon his cheeks, "I do not believe that God, the
father of us all, will damn to eternal perdition any of the
children of men."

     I saw another instrument, called the Scavenger's Daughter.
Think of a pair of shears with handles not only where they now are,
but at the points as well, and just above the pivot that unites the
blades, a circle of iron. In the upper handles the hands would be
placed; in the lower, the feet; and through the iron ring, at the
center, the head of the victim would be forced. In this condition,
he would be thrown prone upon the earth, and the strain upon the
muscles produced such agony that insanity would in pity end his
pain.

     This was done by gentlemen who said: "Whosoever smiteth thee
upon one cheek turn to him the other also."

     I saw the Rack. This was a box like the bed of a wagon, with
a windlass at each end, with leavers, and ratchets to prevent
slipping; over each windlass went chains; some were fastened to the
ankles of the sufferer; others to his wrists. And then priests,
clergymen, divines, saints, began turning these windlasses, and
kept turning, until the ankles, the knees, the hips, the shoulders,
the elbows, the wrists of the victim were all dislocated, and the
sufferer was wet with the sweat of agony. And they had standing by
a physician to feel his pulse. What for? To save his life? Yes. In
mercy? No; simply that they might rack him once again.

     This was done, remember, in the name of civilization; in the
name of law and order; in the name of mercy; in the name: religion;
in the name of the most merciful Christ.

     Sometimes, when I read and think about these frightful things,
it seems to me that I have suffered all these horrors myself. It
seems sometimes, as though I had stood upon the shore of exile and
gazed with tearful eyes toward home and native land; as though my
nails had been torn from my hands, and into the bleeding quick
needles had been thrust; as though my feet had been crushed in iron
boots; as though I had been chained in the cell of the Inquisition
and listened with dying ears for the coming footsteps of release;
as though I had stood upon the scaffold and had seen the glittering
axe fall upon me; as though I had been upon the rack and had seen,
bending above me, the white faces of hypocrite priests; as though
I had been taken from my fireside, from my wife and children, taken
to the public square, chained; as though fagots had been piled
about me; as though the flames had climbed around my limbs and
scorched my eyes to blindness, and as though my ashes had been
scattered to the four winds, by all the countless hands of hate.
And when I so feel, I swear that while I live I will do what little
I can to preserve and to augment the liberties of man, woman, and
child.




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     It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of
intellectual development. If there is a man in the world who is not
willing to give to every human being every right he claims for
himself, he is just so much nearer a barbarian than I am. It is a
question of honesty. The man who is not willing to give to every
other the same intellectual rights he claims for himself, is
dishonest, selfish, and brutal.

     It is a question of intellectual development. Whoever holds
another man responsible for his honest thought, has a deformed and
distorted brain. It is a question of intellectual development.

     A little while ago I saw models of nearly everything that man
has made. I saw models of all the water craft, from the rude dug-
out in which floated a naked savage -- one of our ancestors -- a
naked savage, with teeth two inches in length, with a spoonful of
brains in the back of his head -- I saw models of all the water
craft of the world, from that dug-out up to a man-of-war, that
carries a hundred guns and miles of canvas -- from that dug-out to
the steamship that turns its brave prow from the port of New York,
with a compass like a conscience, crossing three thousand miles of
billows without missing a throb or beat of its mighty iron heart.

     I saw at the same time the weapons that man has made, from a
club, such as was grasped by that same savage, when he crawled from
his den in the ground and hunted a snake for his dinner; from that
club to the boomerang, to the sword, to the cross-bow, to the
blunderbuss, to the flint-lock, to the cap-lock, to the needle-gun,
up to a cannon cast by Krupp, capable of hurling a ball weighing
two thousand pounds through eighteen inches of solid steel.

     I saw, too, the armor from the shell of a turtle, that one of
our brave ancestors lashed upon his breast when he went to fight
for his country; the skin of a porcupine, dried with the quills on
it which this same savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the
shirts of mail, that were worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed at
the edge of the sword and defied the point of the spear; up to a
monitor clad in complete steel.

     I saw at the same time, their musical instruments, from the
tom-tom -- that is, a hoop with a couple of strings of raw hide
drawn across it -- from that tom-tom, up to the instruments we have
to-day, that make the common air blossom with melody.

     I saw, too, their paintings, from a daub of yellow mud, to the
great works which now adorn the galleries of the world. I saw also
their sculpture, from the rude god with four legs, a half dozen
arms, several noses, and two or three rows of ears, and one little,
contemptible, brainless head, up to the figures of to-day -- to the
marbles that genius has clad in such a personality that it seems
almost impudent to touch them without an introduction.

     I saw their books -- books written upon skins of wild beasts
-- upon shoulder-blades of sheep, books written upon leaves, upon
bark, up to the splendid volumes that enrich the libraries of our
day. When I speak of libraries, I think of the remark of Plato; "A
house that has a library in it has a soul."


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     I saw their implements of agriculture, from a crooked stick
that was attached to the horn of an ox by some twisted straw, to
the agricultural implements of this generation, that make it
possible for a man to cultivate the soil without being a ignoramus.

     While looking upon these things I was forced to say that man
advanced only as he mingled his thought with his labor, -- only as
he got into partnership with the forces of nature, -- only as he
learned to take advantage of his surroundings only as he freed
himself from the bondage of fear, -- only as he depended upon
himself -- only as he lost confidence in the gods.

     I saw at the same time a row of human skulls, from the lowest
skull that has been found, the Neanderthal skull -- skulls from
Central Africa, skulls from the Bushmen of Australia -- skulls from
the farthest isles of the Pacific sea -- up to the best skulls of
the last generation; -- and I noticed that there was the same
difference between those skulls that there was between the products
of those skulls and I said to myself, "After all, it is a simple
question of intellectual development." There was the same
difference between those skulls, the lowest and highest skulls,
that there was between the dugout and the man-of-war and the
steamship, between the club and the Krupp gun, between the yellow
daub and the landscape, between the tom-tom and an opera by Vendi.

     The first and lowest skull in this row was the den in which
crawled the base and meaner instincts of mankind, and the last was
a temple in which dwelt joy, liberty, and love.

     It is all a question of brain, of intellectual development.

     If we are nearer free than were our fathers, it is because we
have better heads upon the average, and more brains in them.

     Now, I ask you to be honest with me. It makes no difference to
you what I believe, nor what I wish to prove. I simply ask you to
be honest. Divest your minds, for a moment at least, of all
religious prejudice. Act, for a few moments, as though you were men
and women.

     Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there
was one, at the time this gentleman floated in the dug-out, and
charmed his ears with the music of the tom-tom, had said: "That
dug-out is the best boat that ever can be built by man; the pattern
of that came from on high, from the great god of storm and flood,
and any man who says that he can improve it by putting a mast in
it, with a sail upon it, is an infidel, and shall be burned at the
stake;" what, in your judgment -- honor bright -- would have been
the effect upon the circumnavigation of the globe?

     Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, if there
was one -- and I presume there was a priest, because it was a very
ignorant age -- suppose this king and priest had said: "That tom-
tom is the most beautiful instrument of music of which any man can
conceive; that is the kind of music they have in heaven; an angel
sitting upon the edge of a fleecy cloud, golden in the setting sun,
playing upon that tom-tom, became so enraptured, so entranced with 


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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

her own music, that in a kind of ecstasy she dropped it -- that is
how we obtained it; and any man who says that it can be improved by
putting a back and front to it, and four strings, and a bridge, and
getting a bow of hair with rosin, is a blaspheming wretch, and
shall die the death," -- I ask you, what effect would that have had
upon music? If that course had been pursued, would the human ears,
in your judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine
symphonies of Beethoven?

     Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said:
"That crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented: the
pattern of that plow was given to a pious farmer in a holy dream,
and that twisted straw is the plus ultra of all twisted things, and
any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an
atheist;" what, in your Judgment, would have been the effect upon
the science of agriculture?

     But the people said, and the king and priest said: "We want
better weapons with which to kill our fellow-Christians; we want
better plows, better music, better paintings, and whoever will give
us better weapons, and better music, better houses to live in,
better clothes, we will robe him in wealth, and crown him with
honor." Every incentive was held out to every human being to
improve these things. That is the reason the club has been changed
to a cannon, the dug-out to a steamship, the daub to a painting;
that is the reason that the piece of rough and broken stone finally
became a glorified statue.

     You must not, however, forget that the gentleman in the dug-
out, the gentleman who was enraptured with the music of the tom-
tom, and cultivated his land with a crooked stick, had a religion
of his own. That gentlemen in the dugout was orthodox. He was never
troubled with doubts. He lived and died settled in his mind. He
believed in hell; and he thought he would be far happier in heaven,
if he could just lean over and see certain people who expressed
doubts as to the truth of his creed, gently but everlastingly
broiled and burned.

     It is a very sad and unhappy fact that this man has had a
great many intellectual descendants. It is also an unhappy fact in
nature, that the ignorant multiply much faster than the
intellectual. This fellow in the dug-out believed in a personal
devil. His devil had a cloven hoof, a long tail, armed with a fiery
dart; and his devil breathed brimstone. This devil was at least the
equal of God; not quite so stout but a little shrewder. And do you
know there has not been a patentable improvement made upon that
devil for six thousand years?

     This gentleman in the dug-out believed that God was a tyrant;
that he would eternally damn the man who lived in accordance with
his highest and grandest ideal. He believed that the earth was
flat. He believed in a literal, burning, seething hell of fire and
sulphur. He had also his idea of politics; and his doctrine was,
might makes right. And it will take thousands of years before the
world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly say, "Right makes
might."



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     All I ask is the same privilege to improve upon that
gentleman's theology as upon his musical instrument; the same right
to improve upon his politics as upon his dug-out. That is all. I
ask for the human soul the same liberty in every direction. That is
the only crime I have committed. I say, let us think. Let each one
express his thought. Let us become investigators, not followers,
not cringers and crawlers. If there is in heaven an infinite being,
he never will be satisfied with the worship of cowards and
hypocrites. Honest unbelief, honest infidelity, honest atheism,
will be a perfume in heaven when pious hypocrisy, no matter how
religious it may be outwardly, will be a stench.

     This is my doctrine: Give every other human being every right
you claim for yourself. Keep your mind open to the influences of
nature. Receive new thoughts with hospitality. Let us advance.

     The religionist of to-day wants the ship of his soul to lie at
the wharf of orthodoxy and rot in the sun. He delights to hear the
sails of old opinions flap against the masts of old creeds. He
loves to see the joints and the sides open and gape in the sun, and
it is a kind of bliss for him to repeat again and again: "Do not
disturb my opinions. Do not unsettle my mind; I have it all made
up, and I want no infidelity. Let me go backward rather than
forward."

     As far as I am concerned I wish to be out on the high seas. I
wish to take my chances with wind, and wave, and star. And I had
rather go down in the glory and grandeur of the storm, than to rot
in any orthodox harbor whatever.

     After all, we are improving from age to age. The most orthodox
people in this country two hundred years ago would have been burned
for the crime of heresy. The ministers who denounce me for
expressing my thought would have been in the Inquisition
themselves. Where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the
army of progress, now glow the altars of the church. The
religionists of our time are occupying about the same ground
occupied by heretics and infidels of one hundred years ago. The
church has advanced in spite, as it were, of itself. It has
followed the army of progress protesting and denouncing, and had to
keep within protesting and denouncing distance. If the church had
not made great progress I could not express my thoughts.

     Man, however, has advanced just exactly in the proportion with
which he has mingled his thought with his labor. The sailor,
without control of the wind and wave, knowing nothing or very
little of the mysterious currents and pulses of the sea, is
superstitious. So also is the agriculturist, whose prosperity
depends upon something he cannot control. But the mechanic, when a
wheel refuses to turn, never thinks of dropping on his knees and
asking the assistance of some divine power. He knows there is a
reason. He knows that something is too large or too small; that
there is something wrong with his machine; and he goes to work and
he makes it larger or smaller, here or there, until the wheel will
turn. Now, just in proportion as man gets away from being, as it
were, the slave of his surroundings, the serf of the elements, --
of the heat, the frost, the snow, and the lightning, -- just to, 


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the extent that he has gotten control of his own destiny, Just to
the extent that he has triumphed over the obstacles of nature, he
has advanced physically and intellectually. As man develops, he
places a greater value upon his own rights. Liberty becomes a
grander and diviner thing. As he values his own rights, he begins
to value the rights of others. And when all men give to all others
all the rights they claim for themselves, this world will be
civilized.

     A few years ago the people were afraid to question the king,
afraid to question the priest, afraid to investigate a creed,
afraid to deny a book, afraid to denounce a dogma, afraid to
reason, afraid to think. Before wealth they bowed to the very
earth, and in the presence of titles they became abject. All this
is slowly but surely changing. We no longer bow to men simply
because they are rich. Our fathers worshiped the golden calf. The
worst you can say of an American now is, he worships the gold of
the calf. Even the calf is beginning to see this distinction.

     It no longer satisfies the ambition of a great man to be king
or emperor. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being the
emperor of the French. He was not satisfied with having a circlet
of gold about his head. He wanted some evidence that he had
something of value within his head. So he wrote the life of Julius
Caesar, that he might become a member of the French Academy. The
emperors, the kings, the popes, no longer tower above their
fellows. Compare King William with the philosopher Haeckel. The 
king is one of the anointed by the most high, as they claim -- one
upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority.
Compare this king with Haeckel, who towers an intellectual colossus
above the crowned mediocrity. Compare George Eliot with Queen
Victoria. The Queen is clothed in garments given her by blind
fortune and unreasoning chance, while George Eliot wears robes of
glory woven in the loom of her own genius.

     The world is beginning to pay homage to intellect, to genius,
to heart.

     We have advanced. We have reaped the benefit of every sublime
and heroic self-sacrifice, of every divine and brave act; and we
should endeavor to hand the torch to the next generation, having
added a little to the intensity and glory of the flame.

     When I think of how much this world has suffered; when I think
of how long our fathers were slaves, of how they cringed and
crawled at the foot of the throne, and in the dust of the altar, of
how they abased themselves, of how abjectly they stood in the
presence of superstition robed and crowned, I am amazed.

     This world has not been fit for a man to live in fifty years.
It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the
slave trade. Up to that time her judges, sitting upon the bench in
the name of justice, her priests, occupying her pulpits, in the
name of universal love, owned stock in the slave ships, and
luxuriated upon the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until
the same year that the United States of America abolished the slave
trade between this and other countries, but carefully preserved it 


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as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August,
1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies;
and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that Abraham
Lincoln, sustained by the sublime and heroic North, rendered our
flag pure as the sky in which it floats.

     Abraham Lincoln was, in my judgment, in many respects, the
grandest man ever President of the United States. Upon his monument
these words should be written: "Here sleeps the only man in the
history of the world, who, having been clothed with almost absolute
power, never abused it, except upon the side of mercy."

     Think how long we clung to the institution of human slavery,
how long lashes upon the naked back were a legal tender for labor
performed. Think of it. The pulpit of this country deliberately and
willingly, for a hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a
whipping post.

     With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate every form of
tyranny, every form of slavery. I hate dictation. I love liberty.

     What do I mean by liberty? By physical liberty I mean the
right to do anything which does not interfere with the happiness of
another. By intellectual liberty I mean the right to think right
and the right to think wrong. Thought is the means by which we
endeavor to arrive at truth. If we know the truth already, we need
not think. All that can be required is honesty of purpose. You ask
my opinion about anything; I examine it honestly, and when my mind
is made up, what should I tell you? Should I tell you my real
thought? what should I do? There is a book put in my hands. I am
told this is the Koran; it was written by inspiration. I read it,
and when I get through, suppose that I think in my heart and in my
brain, that it is utterly untrue, and you then ask me, what do you
think? Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have no chance to
get any office unless I am on the side of the Koran, what should I
say? Should I make a clean breast and say, that upon my honor I do
not believe it? What would you think then of my fellow citizens if
they said: "That man is dangerous, he is dishonest."

     Suppose I read the book called the Bible, and when I get
through I make up my mind that it was written by men. A minister
asks me, "Did you read the Bible?'" I answer, that I did. "Do you
think it divinely inspired?" What should I reply? Should I say to
myself, "If I deny the inspiration of the Scriptures, the people
will never clothe me with power." What ought I to answer? Ought I
not to say like a man: "I have read it; I do not believe it."
Should I not give the real transcript of my mind? Or should I turn
hypocrite and pretend what I do not feel, and hate myself forever
after for being a cringing coward. For my part I would rather a man
would tell me what he honestly thinks. I would rather he would
preserve his manhood. I had a thousand times rather be a manly
unbeliever than an unmanly believer. And if there is a Judgement
day, a time when all will stand before some supreme being, I
believe I will stand higher, and stand a better chance of getting
my case decided in my favor, than any man sneaking through life
pretending to believe what he does not.



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     I have made up my mind to say my say. I shall do it kindly,
distinctly; but I am going to do it. I know there are thousands of
men who substantially agree with me, but who are not in a condition
to express their thoughts. They are poor; they are in business; and
they know that should they tell their honest thought, persons will
refuse to patronize them -- to trade with them; they wish to get
bread for their little children; they wish to take care of their
wives; they wish to have homes and the comforts of life. Every such
person is a certificate of the meanness of the community in which
he resides. And yet I do not blame these people for not expressing
their thought. I say to them: "Keep your ideas to yourselves; feed
and clothe the ones you love; I will do your talking for you. The
church can not touch, can not crush, can not starve, can not stop
or stay me; I will express your thoughts."

     As an excuse for tyranny, as a justification of slavery, the
church has taught that man is totally depraved. Of the truth of
that doctrine, the church has furnished the only evidence there is.
The truth is, we are both good and bad. The worst are capable of
some good deeds, and the best are capable of bad. The lowest can
rise, and the highest may fall. That mankind can be divided into
two great classes, sinners and saints, is an utter falsehood. In
times of great disaster, called it may be, by the despairing voices
of women, men, denounced by the church as totally depraved, rush to
death as to a festival. By such men, deeds are done so filled with
self-sacrifice and generous daring, that millions pay to them the
tribute, not only of admiration, but of tears. Above all creeds,
above all religions, after all, is that divine thing -- Humanity;
and now and then in shipwreck on the wide, wild sea, or 'mid the
rocks and breakers of some cruel shore, or where the serpents of
flame writhe and hiss, some glorious heart, some chivalric soul
does a deed that glitters like a star, and gives the lie to all the
dogmas of superstition. All these frightful doctrines have been
used to degrade and to enslave mankind.

     Away, forever away with the creeds and books and forms and
laws and religions that take from the soul liberty and reason. Down
with the idea that thought is dangerous! Perish the infamous
doctrine that man can have property in man. Let us resent with
indignation every effort to put a chain upon our minds. If there is
no God, certainly we should not bow and cringe and crawl. If there
is a God, there should be no slaves.

                        LIBERTY OF WOMAN.

     Women have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it
took millions of ages for woman to come from the condition of
abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right
here, that I regard marriage as the holiest institution among men.
Without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the
family relation there is no life worth living. Every good
government is made up of good families. The unit of good government
is the family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is
perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold
in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired men and short-
haired women who denounce the institution of marriage.



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     The grandest ambition that any man can possibly have, is to so
live, and so improve himself in heart and brain, as to be worthy of
the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any
girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some
magnificent man. That is my idea. There is no success in life
without love and marriage. You had better be the emperor of one
loving and tender heart, and she the empress of yours, than to be
king of the world. The man who has really won the love of one good
woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a
beggar, his life has been a success.

     I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of
abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the
ornaments you wear upon your persons to-night are but the souvenirs
of your mother's bondage. The chains around your necks, and the
bracelets clasped upon your white arms by the thrilled hand of
love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to
shining, glittering gold.

     But nearly every religion has accounted for all the devilment
in this world by the crime of woman. What a gallant thing that is!
And if it is true, I had rather live with the woman I love in a
world full of trouble, than to live in heaven with nobody but men.

     I read in a book -- and I will say now that I cannot give the
exact language, as my memory does not retain the words, but I can
give the substance -- I read in a book that the Supreme Being
concluded to make a world and one man; that he took some nothing
and made a world and one man, and put this man in a garden. In a
little while he noticed that the man got lonesome; that he wandered
around as if he was waiting for a train. There was nothing to
interest him; no news; no papers; no politics; no policy; and, as
the devil had not yet made his appearance, there was no chance for
reconciliation; not even for civil service reform. Well, he
wandered about the garden in this condition, until finally the
Supreme Being made up his mind to make him a companion.

     Having used up all the nothing he originally took in making
the world and one man, he had to take a part of the man to start a
woman with. So he caused a sleep to fall on this man -- now
understand me, I do not say this story is true. After the sleep
fell upon this man, the Supreme Being took a rib, or as the French
would call it, a cutlet, out of this man, and from that he made a
woman. And considering the amount of raw material used, I look upon
it as the most successful job ever performed. Well, 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
started housekeeping; and they were told of certain things they
might do and of one thing they could not do -- and of course they
did it. I would have done it in fifteen minutes, and I know it.
There wouldn't have been an apple on that tree half an hour from
date, and the limbs would have been full of cobs. And then they
were turned out of the park and extra policemen were put on to keep
them from getting back in.

     Devilment commenced. The mumps, and the measles, and the
whooping-cough, and the scarlet fever started in their race for 
man. They began to have the toothache, roses began to have thorns,

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snakes began to have poisoned teeth, and people began to divide
about religion and politics, and the world has been full of trouble
from that day to this.

     Nearly all of the religions of this world account for the
existence of evil by such a story as that!

     I read in another book what appeared to be an account of the
same transaction. It was written about four thousand years before
the other. All commentators agree that the one that was written
last was the original and that the one that was written first was
copied from the one that was written last. But I would advise you
all not to allow your creed to be disturbed by a little matter of
four or five thousand years. In this other story, Brahma made up
his mind to make the world and a man and woman. He made the world,
and he made the man and then the woman, and put them on the island
of Ceylon. According to the account it was the most beautiful
island of which man can conceive. Such birds, such songs, such
flowers and such verdure! And the branches of the trees were so
arranged that when the wind swept through them every tree was a
thousand AEolian harps.

     Brahma, when he put them there, said: "Let them have a period
of courtship, for it is my desire and will that true love should
forever precede marriage." When I read that, it was so much more
beautiful and lofty than the other, that I said to myself, "If
either one of these stories ever turns out to be true" I hope it
will be this one."

     Then they had their courtship, with the nightingale singing,
and the stars shining, and the flowers blooming, and they fell in
love. Imagine that courtship! No prospective fathers or mothers-in-
law; no prying and gossiping neighbors; nobody to say, "Young man,
how do you expect to support her?" Nothing of that kind. They were
married by the Supreme Brahma, and he said to them: "Remain here;
you must never leave this island." Well, after a little while the
man -- and his name was Adami, and the woman's name was Heva --
said to Heva: "I believe I'll look about a little." He went to the
northern extremity of the island where there was a little narrow
neck of land connecting it with the mainland, and the devil, who is
always playing pranks with us, produced a mirage, and when he
looked over to the mainland, such hills and vales, such dells and
dales, such mountains crowned with snow, such cataracts clad in
bows of glory did he see there, that he went back and told Heva:
"The country over there is a thousand times better than this; let
us migrate." She, like every other woman that ever lived, said:
"Let well enough alone; we have all we want; let us stay here." But
he said "No, let us go;" so she followed him, and when they came to
this narrow neck of land, he took her on his back like a gentleman,
and carried her over. But the moment they got over they heard a
crash, and looking back, discovered that this narrow neck of land
had fallen into the sea. The mirage had disappeared, and there were
naught but rocks and sand; and then the Supreme Brahma cursed them
both to the lowest hell.

     Then it was that the man spoke, -- and I have liked him ever
since for it -- "Curse me, but curse not her, it was not her fault,
it was mine."

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     That's the kind of man to start a world with.

     The Supreme Brahma said: "I will save her, but not thee." And
then she spoke out of her fullness of love, out of a heart in which
there was love enough to make all her daughters rich in holy
affection, and said: "If thou wilt not spare him, spare neither me;
I do not wish to live without him; I love him." Then the Supreme
Brahma said -- and I have liked him ever since I read it -- "I will
spare you both and watch over you and your children forever."

     Honor bright, is not that the better and grander story?

     And from that same book I want to show you what ideas some of
these miserable heathen had; the heathen we are trying to convert.
We send missionaries over yonder to convert heathen there and we
send soldiers out on the plains to kill heathen here. If we can
convert the heathen why not convert those nearest home? Why not
convert those we can get at? Why not convert those who have the
immense advantage of the example of the average pioneer? But to
show you the men we are trying to convert: In this book it says:
"Man is strength, woman is beauty; man is courage, woman is love.
When the one man loves the one woman and the one woman loves the
one man, the very angels leave heaven and come and sit in that
house and sing for joy."

     They are the men we are converting. Think of it! I tell you,
when I read these things, I say that love is not of any country;
nobility does not belong exclusively to any race, and through all
the ages, there have been a few great and tender souls blossoming
in love and pity.

     In my judgment, the woman is the equal of the man. She has all
the rights I have and one more, and that is the right to be
protected. That is my doctrine. You are married; try and make the
woman you love happy. Whoever marries simply for himself will make
a mistake; but whoever loves a woman so well that he says, "I will
make her happy," makes no mistake. And so with the woman who says,
"I will make him happy." There is only one way to be happy, and
that is to make somebody else so, and you cannot be happy by going
cross lots; you have got to go the regular turnpike road.

     If there is any man I detest, it is the man who thinks he is
the head of a family -- the man who thinks he is "boss!" The fellow
in the dug-out used that word "boss;" that was one of his favorite
expressions.

     Imagine a young man and a young woman courting, walking out in
the moonlight, and the nightingale singing a song of pain and love,
as though the thorn touched her heart -- imagine them stopping
there in the moonlight and starlight and song, and saying, "Now,
here, let us settle who is boss!'" I tell you it is an infamous
word and an infamous feeling -- I abhor a man who is "boss," who is
going to govern in his family, and when he speaks orders all the
rest to be still as some mighty idea is about to be launched from
his mouth. Do you know I dislike this man unspeakably?




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     I hate above all things a cross man. What right has he to
murder the sunshine of a day? What right has he to assassinate the 
Joy of life? When you go home you ought to go like a ray of light
-- so that it will, even in the night, burst out of the doors and
windows and illuminate the darkness. Some men think their mighty
brains have been in a turmoil; they have been thinking about who
will be alderman from the fifth ward; they have been thinking about
politics; great and mighty questions have been engaging their
minds; they have bought calico at five cents or six, and want to
sell it for seven. Think of the intellectual strain that must have
been upon that man, and when he gets home everybody else in the
house must look out for his comfort. A woman who has only taken
care of five or six children, and one or two of them sick, has been
nursing them and singing to them, and trying to make one yard of
cloth do the work of two, she, of course, is fresh and fine and
ready to wait upon this gentleman -- the head of the family -- the
boss!

     Do you know another thing? I despise a stingy man. I do not
see how it is possible for a man to die worth fifty million of
dollars, or ten million of dollars, in a city full of want, when he
meets almost every day the withered hand of beggary, and the white
lips of famine. How a man can withstand all that, and hold in the
clutch of his greed twenty or thirty million of dollars, is past my
comprehension. I do not see how he can do it. I should not think he
could do it any more than he could keep a pile of lumber on the
beach, where hundreds and thousands of men were drowning in the
sea.

     Do you know that I have known men who would trust their wives
with their hearts and their honor but not with their pocketbook;
not with a dollar. When I see a man of that kind, I always think he
knows which of these articles is the most valuable. Think of making
your wife a beggar! Think of her having to ask you every day for a
dollar, or for two dollars or fifty cents! "What did you do with
that dollar I gave you last week?" Think of having a wife that is
afraid of you! what kind of children do you expect to have with a
beggar and a coward for their mother? Oh, I tell you if you have
but a dollar in the world, and you have got to spend it, spend it
like a king; spend it as though it were a dry leaf and you the
owner of unbounded forests! That's the way to spend it! 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! If it has got to go, let it
go!

     Get the best you can for your family -- try to look as well as
you can yourself. When you used to go courting, how elegantly you
looked! Ah, your eye was bright, your sleep was light, and you
looked like a prince. Do you know that it is insufferable egotism
in you to suppose a woman is going to love you always looking as
slovenly as you can! Think of it! Any good woman on earth will be
true to you forever when you do your level best.

     Some people tell me, "Your doctrine about loving, and wives,
and all that, is splendid for the rich, but it won't do for the
poor." I tell you to-night there is more love in the homes of the
poor than in the palaces of the rich. The meanest hut with love in 


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it is a palace fit for the gods, and a palace without love is a den
only fit for wild beasts. That is my doctrine! You cannot be so
poor that you cannot help somebody. Good nature is the cheapest
commodity in the world; and love is the only thing that will pay
ten per cent to borrower and lender both. Do not tell me that you
have got to be rich! We have a false standard of greatness in the
United States. We think here that a man must be great, that he must
be notorious; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his name
must be upon the putrid lips of rumor. It is all a mistake. It is
not necessary to be rich or to be great, or to be powerful, to be
happy. The happy man is the successful man.

     Happiness is the legal tender of the soul.

     Joy is wealth.

     A little while ago, I stood by the grave of the old Napoleon
-- a magnificent tomb of gilt and gold, fit almost for a dead deity
-- and gazed upon the sarcophagus of rare and nameless marble,
where rest at last the ashes of that restless man. I leaned over
the balustrade and thought about the career of the greatest soldier
of the modern world.

     I saw him walking upon the banks of the Seine, contemplating
suicide. I saw him at Toulon -- saw him putting down the mob in the
streets of Paris -- saw him at the head of the army of Italy -- I
saw him crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-color in his hand
-- I saw him in Egypt in the shadows of the pyramids -- I saw him
conquer the Alps and mingle the eagles of France with the eagles of
the crags. I saw him at Marengo -- at Ulm and Austerlitz. I saw him
in Russia, where the infantry of the snow and the cavalry of the
wild blast scattered his legions like winter's withered leaves. I
saw him at Leipsic in defeat and disaster -- driven by a million
bayonets back upon Paris -- clutched like a wild beast -- banished
to Elba. I saw him escape and retake an empire by the force of his
genius. I saw him upon the frightful field of Waterloo, where
Chance and Fate combined to wreck the fortunes of their former
king. And I saw him at St. Helena, with his hands crossed behind
him, gazing out upon the sad and solemn sea.

     I thought of the orphans and widows he had made -- of the
tears that had been shed for his glory and of the only woman who
ever loved him, pushed from his heart by the cold hand of ambition.
And I said I would rather have been a French peasant and worn
wooden shoes. I would rather have lived in a hut with a vine
growing over the door, and the grapes growing purple in the kisses
of the autumn sun. I would rather have been that poor peasant with
my loving wife by my side, knitting as the day died out of the sky
-- with my children upon my knees and their arms about me -- I
would rather have been that man and gone down to the tongueless
silence of the dreamless dust, than to have been that imperial
impersonation of force and murder, known as "Napoleon the Great."

     It is not necessary to be great to be happy; it is not
necessary to be rich to be just and generous and to have a heart
filled with divine affection. No matter whether you are rich or
poor, treat your wife as though she were a splendid flower, and she
will fill your life with perfume and with joy.

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     And do you know, it is a splendid thing to think that the
woman you really love will never grow old to you. Through the
wrinkles of time, through the mask of years, if you really love
her, you will always see the face you loved and won. And a woman
who really loves a man does not see that he grows old; he is not
decrepit to her; he does not tremble; he is not old; she always
sees the same gallant gentleman who won her hand and heart. I like
to think of it in that way; I like to think that love is eternal.
And to love in that way and then go down the hill of life together,
and as you go down, hear, perhaps, the laughter of grandchildren,
while the birds of joy and love sing once more in the leafless
branches of the tree of age.

     I believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy of home.
I believe in the republicanism of the family. I believe in liberty,
equality and love.

                    THE LIBERTY OF CHILDREN.

     If women have been slaves, what shall I say of children; of
the little children in alleys and sub-cellars; the little children
who turn pale when they hear their father's footsteps; little
children who run away when they only hear their names called by the
lips of a mother; little children -- the children of poverty, the
children of crime, the children of brutality, wherever they are --
flotsam and jetsam upon the wild, mad sea of life -- my heart goes
out to them, one and all.

     I tell you the children have the same rights that we have, and
we ought to treat them as though they were human beings. They
should be reared with love, with kindness, with tenderness, and not
with brutality. That is my idea of children.

     When your little child tells a lie, do not rush at him as
though the world were about to go into bankruptcy. Be honest with
him. A tyrant father will have liars for his children; do you know
that? A lie is born of tyranny upon the one hand and weakness upon
the other, and when you rush at a poor little boy with a club in
your hand, of course he lies.

     I thank thee, Mother Nature, that thou hast put ingenuity
enough in the brain of a child, when attacked by a brutal parent,
to throw up a little breastwork in the shape of a lie.

     When one of your children tells a lie, be honest with him;
tell him that you have told hundreds of them yourself. Tell him it
is not the best way; that you have tried it. Tell him as the man
did in Maine when his boy left home: "John, honesty is the best
policy; I have tried both." Be honest with him. Suppose a man as
much larger than you as you are larger than a child five years old,
should come at you with a liberty pole in his hand, and in a voice
of thunder shout, "Who broke that plate?" There is not a solitary
one of you who would not swear you never saw it, or that it was
cracked when you got it. Why not be honest with these children?
Just imagine a man who deals in stocks whipping his boy for putting
false rumors afloat! Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and
blood for evading the truth when he makes half of his own living 


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that way! Think of a minister punishing his child for not telling
all he thinks! Just think of it!

     When your child commits a wrong, take it in your arms; let it
feel your heart beat against its heart; let the child know that you
really and truly and sincerely love it. Yet some Christians, good
Christians, when a child commits a fault, drive it from the door
and say: "Never do you darken this house again." Think of that! And
then these same people will get down on their knees and ask God to
take care of the child they have driven from home. I will never ask
God to take care of my children unless I am doing my level best in
that same direction.

     But I will tell you what I say to my children: "Go where you
will, commit what crime you may; fall to what depth of degradation
you may; you can never commit any crime that will shut my door, my
arms, or my heart to you. As long as I live you shall have one
sincere friend."

     Do you know that I have seen some people who acted as though
they thought that when the Savior said "Suffer little children to
come unto me, for of such is the kingdom of heaven," he had a raw-
hide under his mantle, and made that remark simply to get the
children within striking distance?

     I do not believe in the government of the lash. If any one of
you ever expects to whip your children again, I want you to have a
photograph taken of yourself when you are in the act, with your
face red with vulgar anger, and the face of the little child, with
eyes swimming in tears and the little chin dimpled with fear, like
a piece of water struck by a sudden cold wind. Have the picture
taken. If that little child should die, I cannot think of a sweeter
way to spend an autumn afternoon than to go out to the cemetery,
when the maples are clad in tender gold, and little scarlet runners
are coming, like poems of regret, from the sad heart of the earth
-- and sit down upon the grave and look at that photograph, and
think of the flesh now dust that you beat. I tell you it is wrong;
it is no way to raise children! Make your home happy. Be honest
with them. Divide fairly with them in everything.

     Give them a little liberty and love, and you can not drive
them out of your house. They will want to stay there. Make home
pleasant. Let them play any game they wish. Do not be so foolish as
to say: "You may roll balls on the ground, but you must not roll
them on a green cloth. You may knock them with a mallet, but you
must not push them with a cue. You may play with little pieces of
paper which have "authors" written on them, but you must not have
"cards." Think of it! "You may go to a minstrel show where people
blacken themselves, but you must not go to a theater and see the
characters created by immortal genius put upon the stage." Why?
Well, I can't think of any reason in the world except "minstrel" is
a word of two syllables, and "theater" has three.

     Let children have some daylight at home if you want to keep
them there, and do not commence at the cradle and shout "Don't!"
"Don't!" "Stop!" That is nearly all that is said to a child from 



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the cradle until he is twenty-one years old, and when he comes of
age other people begin saying "Don't!" And the church says "Don't!"
and the party he belongs to says "Don't!"

     I despise that way of going through this world. Let us have
liberty -- Just a little. Call me infidel, call me atheist, call me
what you will, I intend so to treat my children, that they can come
to my grave and truthfully say: "He who sleeps here never gave us
a moment of pain. From his lips, now dust, never came to us an
unkind word."

     People justify all kinds of tyranny toward children upon the
ground that they are totally depraved. At the bottom of ages of
cruelty lies this infamous doctrine of total depravity. Religion
contemplates a child as a living crime -- heir to an infinite curse
-- doomed to eternal fire.

     In the olden time, they thought some days were too good for a
child to enjoy himself. When I was a boy Sunday was considered
altogether too holy to be happy in. Sunday used to commence then
when the sun went down on Saturday night. We commenced at that time
for the purpose of getting a good ready, and when the sun fell
below the horizon on Saturday evening, there was a darkness fell
upon the house ten thousand times deeper than that of night. Nobody
said a pleasant word; nobody laughed; nobody smiled; the child that
looked the sickest was regarded as the most pious. That night you
could not even crack hickory nuts. If you were caught chewing gum
it was only another evidence of the total depravity of the human
heart. It was an exceedingly solemn night. Dyspepsia was in the
very air you breathed. Everybody looked sad and mournful. I have
noticed all my life that many people think they have religion when
they are troubled with dyspepsia. If there could be found an
absolute specific for that disease, it would be the hardest blow
the church has ever received.

     On Sunday morning the solemnity had simply increased. Then we
went to church. The minister was in a pulpit about twenty feet
high, with a little sounding-board above him, and he commenced at
"firstly" and went on and on and on to about "twenty-thirdly." Then
he made a few remarks by way of application; and then took a
general view of the subject, and in about two hours reached the
last chapter in Revelation.

     In those days, no matter how cold the weather was, there was
no fire in the church. It was thought to be a kind of sin to be
comfortable while you were thanking God. The first church that ever
had a stove in it in New England, divided on that account. So the
first church in which they sang by note, was torn in fragments.

     After the sermon we had an intermission. Then came the
catechism with the chief end of man. We went through with that. We
sat in a row with our feet coming in about six inches of the floor.
The minister asked us if we knew that we all deserved to go to
hell, and we all answered "Yes." Then we were asked if we would be
willing to go to hell if it was God's will, and every little liar
shouted "Yes." Then the same sermon was preached once more,
commencing at the other end and going back. After that, we started
for home, sad and solemn -- overpowered with the wisdom displayed 

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in the scheme of the atonement. When we got home, if we had been
good boys, and the weather was warm, sometimes they would take us
out to the graveyard to cheer us up a little. It did cheer me. When
I looked at the sunken tombs and the leaning stones, and read the
half-effaced inscriptions through the moss of silence and
forgetfulness, it was a great comfort. The reflection came to my
mind that the observance of the Sabbath could not last always.
Sometimes they would sing that beautiful hymn in which occurs these
cheerful lines: "here congregations never break up. And Sabbaths
never end."

     These lines, I think, prejudiced me a little against even
heaven. Then we had good books that we read on Sundays by way of
keeping us happy and contented. There were Milners' "History of the
Waldenses," Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted," Yahn's "Archaeology
of the Jews," and Jenkyns' "On the Atonement." I used to read
Jertkyns, "On the Atonement" I have often thought that an atonement
would have to be exceedingly broad in its provisions to cover the
case of a man who would write a book like that for a boy.

     But at last the Sunday wore away, and the moment the sun went
down we were free. Between three and four o'clock we would go out
to see how the sun was coming on. Sometimes it seemed to me that it
was stopping from pure meanness. But finally it went down. It had
to. And when the last rim of light sank below the horizon, off
would go our caps, and we would give three cheers for liberty once
more.

     Sabbaths used to be prisons. Every Sunday was a Bastille.
Every Christian was a kind of turnkey, and every child was a
prisoner, -- a convict. In that dungeon, a smile was a crime.

     It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this holly day.
Think of that!

     A little child would go out into the garden and there would be
a tree laden with blossoms, and the little fellow would lean
against it, and there would be a bird on one of the boughs, singing
and swinging, and thinking about four little speckled eggs, warmed
by the breast of its mate, -- singing and swinging, and the music
in happy waves rippling out of its tiny throat, and the flowers
blossoming, the air filled with perfume and the great white clouds
floating in the sky, and the little boy would lean up against that
tree and think about hell and the worm that never dies.

     I have heard them preach, when I sat in the pew and my feet
did not touch the floor, about the final home of the unconverted.
In order to impress upon the children the length of time they would
probably stay if they settled in that country, the preacher would
frequently give us the following illustration: "Suppose that once
in a billion years a bird should come from some far-distant planet,
and carry off in its little bill a grain of sand, a time would
finally come when the last atom composing this earth would be
carried away; and when this last atom was taken, it would not even
be sun up in hell." Think of such an infamous doctrine being taught
to children!



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     The laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred
still. Strike with hand of fire, O 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 keys; blow,
bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do touch and kiss the moonlit
waves, and charm the lovers wandering 'mid 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. O rippling river of laughter, thou art
the blessed boundary line between the beasts and men; and every
wayward wave of thine doth drown some fretful fiend of care. O
Laughter, rose-lipped daughter of Joy, there are dimples enough in
thy cheeks to catch and hold and glorify all the tears of grief.

     And yet the minds of children have been polluted by this
infamous doctrine of eternal punishment. I denounce it to-day as a
doctrine, the infamy of which no language is sufficient to express.

     Where did that doctrine of eternal punishment for men and
women and children come from? It came from the low and beastly
skull of that wretch in the dug-out. Where did he get it? It was a
souvenir from the animals. The doctrine of eternal punishment was
born in the glittering eyes of snakes -- snakes that hung in
fearful coils watching for their prey. It was born of the howl and
bark and growl of wild beasts. It was born of the grin of hyenas
and of the depraved chatter of unclean baboons. I despise it with
every drop of my blood. Tell me there is a God in the serene
heavens that will damn his children for the expression of an honest
belief! More men have died in their sins, judged by your orthodox
creeds, than there are leaves on all the forests in the wide world
ten thousand times over. Tell me these men are in hell; that these
men are in torment; that these children are in eternal pain, and
that they are to be punished forever and forever! I denounce this
doctrine as the most infamous of lies.

     When the great ship containing the hopes and aspirations of
the word, when the great ship freighted with mankind goes down in
the night of death, chaos and disaster, I am willing to go down
with the ship. I will not be guilty of the ineffable meanness of
paddling away in some orthodox canoe. I will go down with the ship,
with those who love me, and with those whom I have loved. If there
is a God who will damn his children forever, I would rather go to
hell than to go to heaven and keep the society of such an infamous
tyrant. I make my choice now. I despise that doctrine. It has
covered the cheeks of this world with tears. It has polluted the
hearts of children, and poisoned the imaginations of men. It has
been a constant pain, a perpetual terror to every good man and
woman and child. It has filled the good with horror and with fear;
but it has had no effect upon the infamous and base. It has wrung
the hearts of the tender; it has furrowed the checks of the good.
This doctrine never should be preached again. What right have you,
sir, Mr. clergyman, you, minister of the gospel, to stand at the
portals of the tomb, at the vestibule of eternity, and fill the
future with horror and with fear? I do not believe this doctrine;
neither do you. If you did, you could not sleep one moment. Any man




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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

who believes it, and has within his breast a decent, throbbing
heart, will go insane. A man who believes that doctrine and does
not go insane has the heart of a snake, and the conscience of a
hyena.

     Jonathan Edwards, the dear old soul, who, if his doctrine is
true, is now in heaven rubbing his holy hands with glee, as he
hears the cries of the damned, preached this doctrine; and he said:
"Can the believing husband in heaven be happy with his unbelieving
wife in hell? Can the believing father in heaven be happy with his
unbelieving children in hell? Can the loving wife in heaven be
happy with her unbelieving husband in hell?" And he replies: "I
tell you, yea. Such will be their sense of justice, that it will
increase rather than diminish their bliss." There is no wild beast
in the jungles of Africa whose reputation would not be tarnished by
the expression of such a doctrine.

     These doctrines have been taught in the name of religion, in
the name of universal forgiveness, in the name of infinite love and
charity. Do not, I pray you, soil the minds of your children with
this dogma. Let them read for themselves; let them think for
themselves.

     Do not treat your children like orthodox posts to be set in a
row. Treat them like trees that need light and sun and air. Be fair
and honest with them; give them a chance. Recollect that their
rights are equal to yours. Do not have it in your mind that you
must govern them; that they must obey. Throw away forever the idea
of master and slave.

     In old times they used to make the children go to bed when
they were not sleepy, and get up when they were. I say let them go
to bed when they are sleepy, and get up when they are not sleepy.

     But you say, this doctrine will do for the rich but not for
the poor. Well, if the poor have to waken their children early in
the morning it is as easy to wake them with a kiss as with a blow.
Give your children freedom; let them preserve their individuality.
Let your children eat what they desire, and commence at the end of
a dinner they like. That is their business and not yours. They know
what they wish to eat. If they are given their liberty from the
first, they know what they want better than any doctor in the world
can prescribe. Do you know that all the improvement that has ever
been made in the practice of medicine has been made by the
recklessness of patients and not by the doctors? For thousands and
thousands of years the doctors would not let a man suffering from
fever have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as poison. But
every now and then some man got reckless and said, "I had rather
die than not to slake my thirst." Then he would drink two or three
quarts of water and get well. And when the doctor was told of what
the patient had done, he expressed great surprise that he was still
alive, and complimented his constitution upon being able to bear
such a frightful strain. The reckless men, however, kept on
drinking the water, and persisted in getting well. And finally the
doctors said: "In a fever, water is the very best thing you can
take." So, I have more confidence in the voice of nature about such
things than I have in the conclusions of the medical schools.


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                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

     Let your children have freedom and they will fall into your
ways; they will do substantially as you do; but if you try to make
them, there is some magnificent, splendid thing in the human heart
that refuses to be driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest
thing that ever happened for this world, that people are that way.
What would have become of the people five hundred years ago if they
had followed strictly the advice of the doctors? They would have
all been dead. What would the people have been, if at any age of
the world they had followed implicitly the direction of the church?
They would have all been idiots. It is a splendid thing that there
is always some grand man who will not mind, and who will think for
himself.

     I believe in allowing the children to think for themselves. I
believe in the democracy of the family. If in this world there is
anything splendid, it is a home where all are equals.

     You will remember that only a few years ago parents would tell
their children to "let their victuals stop their mouths" They used
to eat as though it were a religious ceremony -- a very solemn
thing. Life should not be treated as a solemn matter. I like to see
the children at table, and hear each one telling of the wonderful
things he has seen and heard. I like to hear the clatter of knives
and forks and spoons mingling with their happy voices. I had rather
hear it than any opera that was ever put upon the boards. Let the
children have liberty. Be honest and fair with them; be just; be
tender, and they will make you rich in love and joy.

     Men are oaks, women are vines, children are flowers.

     The human race has been guilty of almost countless crimes; but
I have some excuse for mankind. This world, after all, is not very
well adapted to raising good people. In the first place, nearly all
of it is water. It is much better adapted to fish culture than to
the production of folks. Of that portion, which is land not one-
eighth has suitable soil and climate to produce great men and
women. You cannot raise men and women of genius, without the proper
soil and climate, any more than you can raise corn and wheat upon
the ice fields of the Arctic sea. You must have the necessary
conditions and surroundings. Man is a product; you must have the
soil and food. The obstacles presented by nature must not be so
great that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage, overcome
them. Winter is the mother of industry and prudence. Above all, it
is the mother of the family relation. Winter holds in its icy arms
the husband and wife and the sweet children. If upon this earth we
ever have a glimpse of heaven, it is when we pass a home in winter,
at night, and through the windows, the curtains drawn aside, we see
the family about the pleasant hearth; the old lady knitting; the
cat playing with the yarn; the children wishing they had as many
dolls or dollars or knives or somethings, as there are sparks going
out to join the roaring blast; the father reading and smoking, and
the clouds rising like incense from the altar of domestic joy. I
never passed such a house without feeling that I had received a
benediction.

     Civilization, liberty, Justice, charity, intellectual
advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted snow.


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                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

     I do not know that I can better illustrate the great truth
that only part of the world is adapted to the production of great
men and women than by calling your attention to the difference
between vegetation in valleys and upon mountains. In the valley you
find the oak and elm tossing their branches defiantly to the storm,
and as you advance up the mountain side the hemlock, the pine, the
birch, the spruce, the fir, and finally you come to little dwarfed
trees, that look like other trees seen through a telescope reversed
-- every limb twisted as though in pain -- getting a scanty
subsistence from the miserly crevices of the rocks. You go on and
on, until at last the highest crag is freckled with a kind of moss,
and vegetation ends. You might as well try to raise oaks and elms
where the mosses grow, as to raise great men and great women where
their surroundings are unfavorable. You must have the proper
climate and soil.

     Science, however, is gradually widening the area within which
men of genius can be produced. We are conquering the north with
houses, clothing, food and fuel. We are in many ways overcoming the
heat of the south. If we attend to this world instead of another,
we may in time cover the land with men and women of genius.

     I have still another excuse. I believe that man came up from
the lower animals. I do not say this as a fact. I simply say I
believe it to be a fact. Upon that question I stand about eight to
seven, which, for all practical purposes, is very near a certainty.
When I first heard of that doctrine I did not like it. My heart was
filled with sympathy for those people who have nothing to be proud
of except ancestors. I thought, how terrible this will be upon the
nobility of the Old World. Think of their being forced to trace
their ancestry back to the duke Orange Outang, or to the princess
Chimpanzee. After thinking it all over, I came to the conclusion
that I liked that doctrine. I became convinced in spite of myself.
I read about rudimentary bones and muscles. I was told that
everybody had rudimentary muscles extending from the ear into the
cheek. I asked "What are they?" I was told: "They are the remains
of muscles; that they became rudimentary from lack of use; they
went into bankruptcy. They are the muscles with which your
ancestors used to flap their ears." I do not now so much wonder
that we once had them as that we have outgrown them.

     After all I had rather belong to a race that started from the
skull-less vertebrates in the dim Laurentian seas, vertebrates
wiggling without knowing why they wiggled, swimming without knowing
where they were going, but that in some way began to develop, and
began to get a little higher and a little higher in the scale of
existence; that came up by degrees through millions of ages through
all the animal world, through all that crawls and swims and floats
and climbs and walks, and finally produced the gentleman in the
dug-out; and then from this man, getting a little grander, and each
one below calling every one above him a heretic, calling every one
who had made a little advance an infidel or an atheist -- for in
the history of this world the man who is ahead has always been
called a heretic -- I would rather come from a race that started
from that skull-less vertebrate, and came up and up and up and
finally produced Shakespeare, the man who found the human intellect
dwelling in a hut, touched it with the wand of his genius and it 
became a palace domed and pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all

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                  Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

the fields of dramatic thought, and from whose day to this, there
have been only gleaners of straw and chaff -- I would rather belong
to that race that commenced a skull-less vertebrate and produced
Shakespeare, a race that has before it an infinite future, with the
angel of progress leaning from the far horizon, beckoning men
forward, upward and onward forever -- I had rather belong to such
a race, commencing there, producing this, and with that hope, than
to have sprung from a perfect pair upon which the Lord has lost
money every moment from that day to this.

                           CONCLUSION.

     I have given you my honest Thought. Surely investigation is
better than unthinking faith. Surely reason is a better guide than
fear. This world should be controlled by the living, not by the
dead. The grave is not a throne, and a corpse is not a king. Man
should not try to live on ashes.

     The theologians dead, knew no more than the theologians now
living. More than this cannot be said. About this world little is
known, -- about another world, nothing.

     Our fathers were intellectual serfs, and their fathers were
slaves. The makers of our creeds were ignorant and brutal. Every
dogma that we have, has upon it the mark of whip, the rust of
chain, and the ashes of fagot.

     Our fathers reasoned with instruments of torture. They
believed in the logic of fire and sword. They hated reason. They
despised thought. They abhorred liberty.

     Superstition is the child of slavery. Free thought will give
us truth. When all have the right to think and to express their
thoughts, every brain will give to all the best it has. The world
will then be filled with intellectual wealth.

     As long as men and women are afraid of the church, as long as
a minister inspires fear, as long as people reverence a thing
simply because they do not understand it, as long as it is
respectable to lose your self-respect, as long as the church has
power, as long as mankind worship a book, just so long will the
world be filled with intellectual paupers and vagrants, covered
with the soiled and faded rags of superstition.

     As long as woman regards the Bible as the charter of her
rights, she will be the slave of man. The Bible was not written by
a woman. Within its lids there is nothing but humiliation and shame
for her. She is regarded as the property of man. She is made to ask
forgiveness for becoming a mother. She is as much below her
husband, as her husband is below Christ. She is not allowed to
speak. The gospel is too pure to be spoken by her polluted lips.
Woman should learn in silence.

     In the Bible will be found no description of a civilized home.
The free mother surrounded by free and loving children, adored by
a free man, her husband, was unknown to the inspired writers of the
Bible. They did not believe in the democracy of home -- in the 
republicanism of the fireside.

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               THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN AND CHILD

     These inspired gentlemen knew nothing of the rights of
children. They were the advocates of brute force -- the disciples
of the lash. They knew nothing of human rights. Their doctrines
have brutalized the homes of millions, and filled the eyes of
infancy with tears.

     Let us free ourselves from the tyranny of a book, from the
slavery of dead ignorance, from the aristocracy of the air.

     There has never been upon the earth a generation of free men
and women. It is not yet time to write a creed. Wait until the
chains are broken -- until dungeons are not regarded as temples.
Wait until solemnity is not mistaken for wisdom -- until mental
cowardice ceases to be known as reverence. Wait until the living
are considered the equals of the dead -- until the cradle takes
precedence of the coffin. Wait until what we know can be spoken
without regard to what others may believe. Wait until teachers take
the place of preachers -- until followers become investigators.
Wait until the world is free before you write a creed.

     In this creed there will be but one word -- Liberty.

     Oh Liberty, float not forever in the far horizon -- remain not
forever in the dream of the enthusiast, the philanthropist and
poet, but come and make thy home among the children of men!

     I know not what discoveries, what inventions, what thoughts
may leap from the brain of the world. I know not what garments of
glory may be woven by the years to come. I cannot dream of the
victories to be won upon the fields of thought; but I do know, that
coming from the infinite sea of the future, there will never touch
this "bank and shoal of time" a richer gift, a rarer blessing than
liberty for man, for woman, and for child.


                          ****     ****



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