nly good people? Are there not a great many bad
people who go to church? Not a bank in Pittsburgh will lend a dollar
to the man who belongs to the church, without security, quicker than to
the man who don't go to church. Now, I believe that all laws upon the
statute-book should be enforced. I do not blame anybody in this town.
I am perfectly willing that every preacher in this town should preach.
They are employed to preach, and to preach a certain doctrine, and if
they don't preach that doctrine they will be turned out. I have no
objection to that. But I want the same privilege to express my views,
and what is the difference whether the man pays the day he goes in, or
pays for it the week before by subscription.

What would the church people think if the theatrical people should
attempt to suppress the churches? What harm would it do to have an
opera here tonight? It would elevate us more than to hear ten thousand
sermons on the world that never dies. There is more practical wisdom
in one of the plays of Shakespeare than in all the sacred books ever
written. What wrong would there be to see one of those grand plays on
Sunday? There was a time when the church would not allow you to cook
on Sunday. You had to eat your victuals cold. There was a time they
thought the more miserable you feel the better God feels. There are
sixty odd thousand preachers in the United States. Some people regard
them as a necessary evil; some as an unnecessary evil. There are sixty
odd thousand churches in the United States; and it does seem to me that
with all the wealth on their side; with all the good people on their
side; with Providence on their side; with all these advantages they
ought to let us at least have the right to speak our thoughts.

The history of the world shows me that the right has not always
prevailed. When you see innocent men chained to the stake and the
flames licking their flesh, it is natural to ask, why does God permit
this? If you see a man in prison with the chains eating into his flesh
simply for loving God, you've got to ask why does not a just God
interfere? You've got to meet this; it won't do to say that it will
all come out for the best. That may do very well for God, but it's
awful hard on the man. Where was the God that permitted slavery for
two hundred years in these United States? The history of the world
shows that when a mean thing was done, man did it; when a good thing
was done,