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Pamphlets for the Million—No. 6
2
^onalsecuursocety *e£
LIBERTY OF MAN,
WOMAN, AND CHILD
By R. G. INGERSOLL
London:
WATTS & CO.,
17 JOHNSON’S COURT, FLEET STREET, E.C.
�PUBLISHERS’ NOTE
This famous Lecture of Colonel Ingersoll is taken from the
Dresden edition of his works (12 vols.; ,£6 net), which was
published in America shortly after his death. In this country
nearly all his principal lectures and essays, apart from his legal
addresses, are included in the series of Lectures and Essays
issued in three parts at is. net each (by post is. 2Xd.; the
three parts 3s. 6d.), or in one volume, handsomely bound, at
6s. net (by post 6s. 6d.)
xvi+ 139 pp.; cloth, 2s. 6d. net, by post 2s. iod.; paper cover,
is. 6d. net, by post is. gd.
THE ORIGIN OF THE WORLD.
by r.
McMillan.
Bishop W. M. Brown, D.D., of Galion, Ohio, U.S.A.,
recently paid the following remarkable tribute to this fasci
nating work :—
“ I regard this book as being worth many times its
weight in gold. I have read it five times, and am expect
ing to re-read a chapter almost every week during the
rest of my life. It was written by an aged scientist for a
young girl who desired to know about the origin of the
world. Its exceptional value consists in the fact that it
covers a very important, extensive, and difficult field of
a scientific character in language which is free from
technical terms. I regard it as being one of the most
interesting and illuminating books that I have ever read.
I wish that I had read such a book when I was young.
It would have had a great and beneficial influence upon
my life.”
London : Watts & Co., Johnson’s Court, Fleet Street, E.C.4.
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN,
AND CHILD
LIBERTY SUSTAINS THE SAME RELATION TO MIND THAT
SPACE DOES TO MATTER.
HERE is no slavery but ignorance. Liberty is
the child of Intelligence.
1 he 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—intel
lectual 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 practised 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 investi
gating 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
T
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 thought
ful 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? 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 a traitor to himself and to his fellow-men.
Every man should stand under the blue and 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 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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
5
that right to me is an intellectual thief and a 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 faggot 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 hypo
crites 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 will not invite him to
dinner; we will socially ostracise 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.”
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 surround
ings, 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 intelli
gence, 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 pro
tuberances, to prevent their slipping; through each end
a screw uniting the two pieces. And when some man
denied the efficacy of baptism, or, maybe, 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 any
thing that you wish; I will admit that there is one god
or a million, one hell or a billion; suit yourselves; 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,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
7
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 cajl 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 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 w^uld 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 poirfts 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 centre, 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 Ra' k. This was a box like the bed of a
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
wa&&on> with 3 windlass at each end, with levers, 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 civilisation;
in the name of law and order; in the name of mercy;
in the name of religion; in the name of the most merciful
Christ.
Sometimes, when I read and think about these fright
ful 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 towards home and native land; as though my nails
had been torn from my hands, and in 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 over me,the white faces of hypo
crite priests; as though I had been taken from my fire
side, from my wife and children, taken to the public
square, chained ; as though faggots 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.
It is a question of justice, of mercy, of honesty, of
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
f)
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 brutah
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 armour 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, which this same
savage pulled over his orthodox head, up to the shirts
of mail that were worn in the Middle Ages, that laughed
A 2
*J
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 the 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 personal
ity 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.”
*
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 an ignoramus.
While looking upon these things I was forced to say
-that man advanced only as he mingled his thought
with his labour—only as he got into partnership with
the forces of nature—only as he learned to take ad
vantage 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 Neander
thal 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 genera-
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
n
tion—and I noticed that there was the same difference
between those skulls that there was between the pro
ducts 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
dug-out 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 Verdi.
1 he first and lowest skull in this row was the den in
which crawled the base and meaner instincts of man
kind, and the last was a temple in which dwelt joy,
liberty, and love.
It is all a question of brain, of intellectual develop
ment.
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 upor\ it, is an
infidel, and shall be burned at the stake ” ; what, in your
judgment—honour 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
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LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
and priest had said : “ That tom-tom is the most beauti
ful 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 her own music, that in
a kind of ecstasy she dropped it—that is how we ob
tained it; and any man who says that it can be im
proved 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 plough that
can be invented; the pattern of that plough was given
to a pious farmer in a holy dream, and that tv sted
straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and any
man who says he can make an improvement upon (hat
plough 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 ploughs, 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 honour.”
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 gentle-
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
13
man in the dug-out 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 be
fore the world will reverse this doctrine, and believingly
say, “Right makes might.”
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 investi
gators, 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
�14
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
matter how religious it may be outwardly, will be a
stench.
1 his 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 harbour whatever.
After all, we are improving from age to age. The
most orthodox people in this conntry 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 glare 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 pro
gress protesting and denouncing, and had to keep with
in 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 pro
portion with which he has mingled his thoughts with
his labour. The sailor, without control of the wind and
wave, knowing nothing or very little of the mysterious
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
15
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 spmething 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 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 ad
vanced 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 civilised.
A few years ago the people were afraid to question
the king, afraid to question the priest, afraid to investi
gate 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 worshipped 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 satis
fied 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
�16
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 petrol
eum of authority. Compare this king with Haeckel, who
towers an intellectual colossus above the crowned
mediocrity.
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 endeavour 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 them
selves, 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 land other
countries, but carefully preserved it 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 re
spects the grandest man ever President of the United
�LIBERTY OF MAN. WOMAN, AND CHILD
17
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 labour performed. Think of it. The
pulpit of this country deliberately and willingly, for a
hundred years, turned the cross of Christ into a whip
ping post.
With every drop of my blood I hate and execrate
eyery 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 inter
fere 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
endeavour 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 any
thing ; 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 honour 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 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
A3
�18
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
divinely inspired ? ” What should I reply ? Should 1
say to myself, “ If I deny the inspiration of the Scrip
tures, the people will never clothe me with power ” ?
What ought 1 to answer? Ought I not to say like
a man : “ 1 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 judgment 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 favour, than any man sneaking through life pre
tending to believe what he does not.
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 patronise 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 per
son 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
cannot touch, cannot crush, cannot starve, cannot 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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
19
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 admira
tion, 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 ciuel 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 indigna
tion 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 rflillions of ages for woman to come
from the condition of abject slavery up to the institu
tion of marriage. Let me say right here that I regard
marriage as the holiest institution among men. With
out the fireside there is no human advancement; with
out the family relation there is no life worth living.
Every good government is made up of good families.
�20
,
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
The unit of good government is the family, and any
thing that tends to destroy the family is perfectly
devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and 1
hold in utter contempt the opinions of those long-haired
men and short-haired women who denounce the institu
tion of marriage.
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 suc
cess 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 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 mothers’
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 civilisa
tion 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 were wait
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
21
ing 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, 1 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 cutfet, 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 clubs. And then they were turned
out of the park, and extra policemen were put on to
keep them from getting back.
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, 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
�22
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 ac
count, 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 ^Eolian 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 for ever 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 bloom
ing, and they fell in love. Imagine that courtship!
No prospective fathers or mothers-in-law; no prySng
and gossiping neighbours; 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 play
ing 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,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
23
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
was 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.”
That is the kind of man to start a world with.
The Supreme Brahma said : “ I will save her, b.ut not
thee.” And then she spoke out of her fulness of love,
out of a heart in which there was love enough to make
all her daughters |ich 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.”
Honour 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 con
vert the heathen, why not convert those nearest home?
Why not convert those we can get at? Why not con
vert 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 :
�24
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
“ 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 will 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 mis
take ; 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 thg 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 favourite expressions.
Imagine a young man and a young woman courting,
walking out in the moonlight, and the nightingale sing
ing a song of pain and love, as though the thorn touched
her heart—imagine them stopping there in the moon
light and starlight and song, and saying, “Now, here,
let us settle who is ‘ boss ! ’ ” I tell you it is an in
famous 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?
I hate above all things a cross man. What right has
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
25
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 aiderman 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 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 honour,
but not with their pocket-book; 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
�26
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 is 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, vour eye
was bright, your step 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
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 notori
ous ; that he must be extremely wealthy, or that his
name must be upon the putrid lips of rumour. 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.
�LIBERTY OF MAN. WOMAN, AND CHILD
27
Joy is wealth.
A little while ago 1 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 sarcopha
gus 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—I saw
him putting down the mob in the streets of Paris—I
saw him at the head of the army of Italy—I saw him
crossing the bridge of Lodi with the tri-colour 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 de
feat 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 iny knees and their arms about me
�2k
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
—1 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.”
ft 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.
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 eld ; 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. 1 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 in the tree of age.
1 believe in the fireside. I believe in the democracy
of home. I believe in the republicanism of the family.
J 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; the 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 ietsam upon the wild, mad sea
of life? My heart goes out to them, one and all.
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
29
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
:hild 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 rumours afloat!
Think of a lawyer beating his own flesh and blood for
evadi-ng the truth when he makes half of his own living
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 .
�3°
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
“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 Saviour 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?
1 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 your
self 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 not the
way to raise children. Make your home happy. Be
honest with them. Divide fairly with them in every
thing.
Give them a little liberty and love, and you cannot
drive them out of your house. They will want to stay
there. Make home pleasant. Let them play any game
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
31
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 and imitate
humanity below them, but you must not go to a
theatre and see the characters created by immortal
genius put upon the stage.” Why? Well, I cannot
think of any reason in the world except “ minstrel ” is
a word of two syllables, and “theatre ” 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 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 truth
fully 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 towards 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. When the sun fell below the
�32
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 “twentythirdly.” 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 within 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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
33
at the other end and going back. After that we started
for home, sad and solemn—overpowered with the
wisdom displayed 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 occur these cheerful lines:—
“ Where congregations ne’er 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 Milner’s History of the Waldenses, Baxter’s
Call to the Unconverted, Yahn’s Archaeology of the
Jevos, and Jenkyn’s On the Atonement. I used to read
Jenkyn’s 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
Bastile. Every Christian was a kind of turnkey, and
every child was a prisoner—a convict. In that dungeon
a smile was a crime.
�34
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
It was thought wrong for a child to laugh upon this
holy 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 !
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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
35
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 world, 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 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
�36
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 cheeks of the good. This doctrine never should be
preached again. What right have you, sir, Mr. Clergy
man, 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 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
ip 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 tar
nished 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 them
selves.
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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
37
to yours. Do not have it in your mind that you must
govern them; that they must obey. Throw away for
ever the idea of master and slave.
In old times they used to make the children go to
bed when they were not sieepy, and get up when they
were sleepy. 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 co
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 if 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 ot years
the doctors would not let a man suffering from fever
have a drop of water. Water they looked upon as
poison. Bui every now and then some man got reck
less and said, “I had rather die than not to slack 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 constitu
tion 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.
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,
�38
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
*
splendid thing in the human heart that refuses to be
driven. And do you know that it is the luckiest thing
wavpeVWhaa,PPenetf7 ,histworid that People are thal
way ? What would have become of the people five
hundred years ago if they had followed strictly the
d T ,°t u‘he doctors? The5' would all have been
nfath
M u0U1 Vthe people have becn if at any age
o thee? >,? kh3d fO"°”ed implicitl’’ tbe direction
of the Church? They would all have been idiots. It is
a splendid thing that there is always some grand man
who will not mind, and who will think for himself.
believe in allowing the children to think for them
selves. 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
V!ry solemn thing. Life should not be
treated as a solemn matter.• I like to see the children
..
---- —
uL und hear ea.ch One teIHn£ of the wonderful
things he has seen or 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
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, and children are
Howers.
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,
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
39
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 grfeat
that man cannot, by reasonable industry and courage,
overcome them. There is upon this world only a
narrow belt of land, circling zig-zag the globe, upon
which you can produce men and women of talent. In
the southern hemisphere the real climate that man
needs falls mostly upon the sea, and the result is that
the southern half of our world has never produced a
-man or woman of great genius. In the far north there
is no genius—it is too cold. In the far south there is
no genius—it is too warm. There must be winter, and
there must be summer. In a country where man needs
no coverlet but a cloud, revolution is his normal con
dition. 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 curtain
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.
Civilisation, liberty, justice, charity, intellectual
advancement, are all flowers that blossom in the drifted
snow.
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
t
�4«
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
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 sub
sistence 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 unfavourable. You must have
the proper climate and soil.
A few years ago we were talking about the annexa
tion of Santo Domingo to this country. I was in
Washington at the time. I was opposed to it. I was
told that it was a most delicious climate; that the soil
produced everything. But I said : “ We do not want
it; it is not the right kind of country in which to raise
American citizens. Such a climate would debauch us.
You might go there with five thousand Congregational
preachers, five thousand ruling elders, five thousand
professors in colleges, five thousand of the solid men
of Boston and their wives; settle them all in Santo
Domingo, and you will see the second generation riding
upon a mule, bareback, no shoes, a grape-vine bridle,
hair sticking out at the top of their sombreros, with a
rooster under each arm, going to a cock fight on
Sunday.” Such is the influence of climate.
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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
4’
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 Orang Outang, or to
the Princess Chimpanzee. After thinking it all oyer,
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 every
body 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 ^rawls, 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
�42
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
wand of his genius, and it became a palace domed and
pinnacled; Shakespeare, who harvested all 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 for ever—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 investi
gation 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
faggot.
. Superstition is the child of slavery. Freethought 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
�LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
43
reverence a thing simply because they do not under
stand it, as long as it is respectable to lose your selfrespect, 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 mothqf. 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 civilised
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.
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 brutalised the homes of
millions, and filled the eyes of infancy with tears.
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 dun
geons 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.
/
�44
LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD
In this creed there will be but one word—Liberty.
Oh, Liberty, float not for ever in the far horizon—
remain not for ever 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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The book arrests attention and stimulates curiosity. It leads
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�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Liberty of man, woman, and child
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Ingersoll, Robert Green [1833-1899]
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 44, [4] p. ; 19 cm.
Series title: Pamphlets for the Millions
Series number: No. 6
Notes: Published for the Rationalist Press Association. Publisher's series list on unnumbered pages at the end. No. 46f in Stein checklist but with different date. Part of the NSS pamphlet collection.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Watts & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1914
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G1063
N369
Subject
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Human rights
Rights
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<a href="http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/mark/1.0/"><img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /></a><span> </span><br /><span>This work (Liberty of man, woman, and child), identified by </span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk"><span>Humanist Library and Archives</span></a><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Liberty
NSS