s brain. I love every man who has given
to every other human being every right that he claimed for himself. I
love every man who thought more of principle than he did of position. I
love the men who have trampled crowns beneath their feet that they
might do something for mankind.

The best minds of the orthodox world, today, are endeavoring to prove
the existence of a personal Deity. All other questions occupy a minor
place. You are no longer asked to swallow the bible whole, whale, Jonah
and all; you are simply required to believe in God, and pay your
pew-rent. There is not now an enlightened minister in the world who
will seriously contend that Samson's strength was in his hair, or that
the necromancers of Egypt could turn water into blood, and pieces of
wood into serpents. These follies have passed away.

For my part, I would infinitely prefer to know all the results of
scientific investigation than to be inspired as Moses was. Supposing
the bible to be true; why is it any worse or more wicked for
free-thinkers to deny it, than for priests to deny the doctrine of
evolution, or the dynamic theory of heat? Why should we be damned for
laughing at Samson and his foxes, while others, holding the nebular
hypothesis in utter contempt, go straight to heaven?

Now when I come to a book, for instance, I read the writings of
Shakespeare--Shakespeare, the greatest human being who ever existed
upon this globe. What do I get out of him? All that I have sense enough
to understand. I get my little cup full. Let another read him who knows
nothing of the drama, who knows nothing of the impersonation of
passion; what does he get from him? Very little. In other words, every
man gets from a book, a flower, a star, or the sea, what he is able to
get from his intellectual development and experience. Do you then
believe that the bible is a different book to every human being that
receives it? I do. Can God, then, through the bible, make the same
revelation to two men? He cannot. Why? Because the man who reads is the
man who inspires. Inspiration is in the man and not in the book.

The real oppressor, enslaver and corrupter of the people is the bible.
That book is the chain that binds, the dungeon that holds the clergy.
That book spreads the pall of superstition over the colleges and
schools. That book puts out the eyes of science, and makes honest
investigation a crime. That book unmans the politician and degrades the
people. That book