mind unsettled; I
have got it all made up, and I don't want to hear any infidelity,
either." As far as I am concerned, I want to be out on the high sea; I
Want to take my chance with wind and wave and star; and I had rather go
down in the glory and grandeur of the storm than to rot at any orthodox
wharf. Of course I mean by orthodoxy all that don't agree with my
doxy. Do you understand?

Now this man had a religion. That fellow believed in hell. Yes, sir;
and he thought he would be happier in heaven if he could just lean over
and see certain people that he disliked, broiled. That fellow has had a
great many intellectual descendents. It is an unhappy fact in nature
that the ignorant multiply much faster than the intellectual. This
fellow believed in the devil, and his devil had a cloven hoof. (Many
people think I have the same kind of footing.) He had a long tail,
armed with a fiery dart, and he breathed brimstone. And do you know
there has not been a patentable improvement made on that devil for
4,000 years? That fellow believed that God was a tyrant. That fellow
believed that the earth was flat. That fellow believed, as I told you,
in a literal burning, seething lake of fire and brimstone. That is
what he believed in. That fellow, too, had his idea of politics, and
his idea was, "Might makes right." And it will take thousands of years
before the world will believingly say, "Right makes might." Now all I
ask is the same privilege of improving on 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. And that is all. That is the
only crime that I have committed. That is all. I say, let us have a
chance. Let us think, and let each one express his thoughts. Let us
become investigators, not followers; not cringers and crawlers. If
there is in heaven an infinite being, he never will be satisfied with
the worship of cowards and hypocrites. Honest unbelief will be a
perfume in heaven when hypocrisy, no matter however religious it may be
outwardly, will be a stench. That is my doctrine. That is all there
is to it; give every other human being all the chance you claim for
yourself. To keep your mind open to the voices of nature, to new
ideas, to new thoughts, and to improve upon your doctrine whenever you
can; that is my doctrine.

Do you know we are improving