ly believes that he is the infallible agent
of an infinite God.

_Question_. Are you in favor of the A. P. A.?

_Answer_. In this country I see no need of secret political
societies. I think it better to fight in the open field. I am a
believer in religious liberty, in allowing all sects to preach
their doctrines and to make as many converts as they can. As long
as we have free speech and a free press I think there is no danger
of the country being ruled by any church. The Catholics are much
better than their creed, and the same can be said of nearly all
members of orthodox churches. A majority of American Catholics
think a great deal more of this country than they do of their
church. When they are in good health they are on our side. It is
only when they are very sick that they turn their eyes toward Rome.
If they were in the majority, of course, they would destroy all
other churches and imprison, torture and kill all Infidels. But
they will never be in the majority. They increase now only because
Catholics come in from other countries. In a few years that supply
will cease, and then the Catholic Church will grow weaker every
day. The free secular school is the enemy of priestcraft and
superstition, and the people of this country will never consent to
the destruction of that institution. I want no man persecuted on
account of his religion.

_Question_. If there is no beatitude, or heaven, how do you account
for the continual struggle in every natural heart for its own
betterment?

_Answer_. Man has many wants, and all his efforts are the children
of wants. If he wanted nothing he would do nothing. We civilize
the savage by increasing his wants, by cultivating his fancy, his
appetites, his desires. He is then willing to work to satisfy
these new wants. Man always tries to do things in the easiest way.
His constant effort is to accomplish more with less work. He
invents a machine; then he improves it, his idea being to make it
perfect. He wishes to produce the best. So in every department
of effort and knowledge he seeks the highest success, and he seeks
it because it is for his own good here in this world. So he finds
that there is a relation between happiness and conduct, and he
tries to find out what he must do to produce the greatest enjoyment.
This is the basis of morality, of law and ethics. We are so
constituted that we love proportion, color, harmony. This is the
artistic man. Mo