orment today has become absurd, low, groveling,
ignorant, barbaric, savage, devilish and no gentleman would preach it.

Science, thou art the great magician! Thou alone performest the true
miracles. Thou alone workest the real wonders. Fire is thy servant,
lightning thy messenger. The waves obey thee, and thou knowest the
circuits of the wind. Thou art the great philanthropist. Thou hast
freed the slave and civilized the master. Thou hast taught man to
chain, not his fellow-man, but the forces of nature--forces that have
no backs to be scarred, no limbs for chains to chill and eat--forces
that never know fatigue, that shed no tears--forces that have no hearts
to break. Thou gavest man the plow, the reaper and the loom--thou hast
fed and clothed the world. Thou art the great physician. Thy touch
hath given sight. Thou hast made the lame to leap, the dumb to speak,
and in the pallid cheek thy hand hath set the rose of health. "Thou
hast given thy beloved sleep"--a sleep that wraps in happy dreams the
throbbing nerves of pain. Thou art the perpetual providence of
man--preserver of life and love. Thou art the teacher of every virtue,
and the enemy of every vice. Thou has discovered the true basis of
morals--the origin and office of conscience--and hast revealed the
nature and measure of obligation. Thou hast taught that love is
justice in its highest form, and that even self-love, guided by wisdom,
embraces with loving arms the human race. Thou hast slain the monsters
of the past. Thou hast discovered the one inspired book. Thou hast
read the records of the rocks, written by wind and wave, by frost and
flame--records that even priestcraft cannot change--and in thy wondrous
scales thou hast weighed the atoms and the stars. Thou art the founder
of the only true religion. Thou art the very Christ, the only savior
of mankind!

Theology has always been in the way of the advance of the human race.
There is this difference between science and theology--science is
modest and merciful, while theology is arrogant and cruel. The hope of
science is the perfection of the human race. The hope of theology is
the salvation of a few and the damnation of almost everybody. As I
told you in the first place, I believe in the religion of freedom. O
liberty! thou art the god of my idolatry. Thou art the only deity that
hates the bended knee. In thy vast and unwalled temple, beneath the
roofless dome, star-gemmed and luminou