ailed to kneel to
a procession of monks.

The slightest word uttered against the superstition of the time was
punished with death.

Even the reformers, so called, of those days, had no idea of
intellectual liberty--no idea even of toleration. Luther, Knox, Calvin,
believed in religious liberty only when they were in the minority. The
moment they were clothed with power they began to exterminate with fire
and sword.

Castellio was the first minister who advocated the liberty of the soul.
He was regarded by the reformers as a criminal, and treated as though he
had committed the crime of crimes.

Bodinus, a lawyer of France, about the same time, wrote a few words
in favor of the freedom of conscience, but public opinion was
overwhelmingly against him. The people were ready, anxious, and willing,
with whip, and chain, and fire, to drive from the mind of man the heresy
that he had a right to think.

Montaigne, a man blest with so much common sense that he was the most
uncommon man of his time, was the first to raise a voice against torture
in France. But what was the voice of one man against the terrible cry of
ignorant, infatuated, superstitious and malevolent millions? It was the
cry of a drowning man in the wild roar of the cruel sea.

In spite of the efforts of the brave few the infamous war against the
freedom of the soul was waged until at least one hundred millions of
human beings--fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters--with hopes, loves,
and aspirations like ourselves, were sacrificed upon the cruel altar
of an ignorant faith. They perished in every way by which death can
be produced. Every nerve of pain was sought out and touched by the
believers in ghosts.

For my part I glory in the fact, that here in the new world,--in the
United States,--liberty of conscience was first guaranteed to man, and
that the Constitution of the United States was the first great decree
entered in the high court of human equity forever divorcing Church and
State,--the first injunction granted against the interference of the
ghosts. This was one of the grandest steps ever taken by the human race
in the direction of Progress.

You will ask what has caused this wonderful change in three hundred
years. And I answer--the inventions and discoveries of the few;--the
brave thoughts, the heroic utterances of the few;--the acquisition of a
few facts.

Besides, you must remember that every wrong in some way tends to abolish
itself. It is