work and live; ours to use the organisation that he made,
ours to employ this splendid instrument which is now in our hands for
world-wide labor and for world-wide helping. That is the work to which
I would summon you now, and pray your help. Let us not stand apart one
from the other, and work always along isolated lines; in addition to
the isolated work, we should have the combined work; for many often
can bring about a result which one cannot do. Take, for instance, the
great libraries of Europe, far, far apart. It is very laborious for a
person to travel all over Europe and labor alone in them all; but if
we had students working in every great library, we should have feeders
who would send in to a common centre the result of their work, which
could then be shed over the world.

Along those lines the Society will become respected, when it is known
for honest and useful work in all departments of human activity. There
is no good in glorifying it by words and saying what a splendid thing
it is, unless we justify ourselves to the world by the work which we
contribute for the world's helping.

In this way, then, I would ask you to look at our great field of work.
Laborers are wanted. There is more than work enough for all, and in
this work the principle that must guide us is, as we have so often
said, freedom of thought, freedom of expression. But let it be
understood in the Society, for there is danger of this being
forgotten, that there is freedom for those who assert as well as for
those who deny; that all alike are free. Those who know have a right
to speak, and there should be no outcry against them; those who do not
believe have a right to say they do not believe, and there should be
no outcry against them because they believe not But there is a danger
lest those who believe not should think that they have the only right
of speech, and that those who experience have no right to say out that
which they know to be true. It is the danger which dogs the steps of
Freethought everywhere. You can see it in France at the present time,
where the Freethinker, smarting against the oppression of the Church,
tries to silence the Church, as he has been silenced in the past; but
it is a bad reaction, and we cannot have that within the
Society--there must be liberty for all. I do not wish to impose my own
beliefs on any man or woman in the Society, but I claim the right
amongst you to speak the truth I know, and to bear witness t