nment.

Is it desirable that all should be exactly alike in their religious
convictions? Is any such thing possible? Do we not know that there
are no two persons alike in the whole world? No two trees, no two
leaves, no two anythings that are alike? Infinite diversity is the
law. Religion tries to force all minds into one mold. Knowing that all
cannot believe, the church endeavors to make all say that they believe.
She longs for the unity of hypocrisy, and detests the splendid
diversity of individuality and freedom.

Nearly all people stand in great horror of annihilation, and yet to
give up your individuality is to annihilate yourself. Mental slavery
is mental death, and every man who has given up his intellectual
freedom is the living coffin of his dead soul. In this sense every
church is a cemetery and every creed an epitaph. We should all
remember that to be like other folks is to be unlike ourselves, and
that nothing can be more detestable in character than servile
imitation. The great trouble with imitation is that we are apt to ape
those who are in reality far below us. After all, the poorest bargain
that a human being can make is to trade off his individuality for what
is called respectability.

There is no saying more degrading than this: "It is better to be the
tail of a lion than the head of a dog." It is a responsibility to
think and act for yourself. Most people hate responsibility; therefore
they join something and become the tail of some lion. They say, "My
party can act for me--my church can do my thinking. It is enough for me
to pay taxes and obey the lion to which I belong without troubling
myself about the right, the wrong, or the why or the wherefore of
anything whatever." These people are respectable. They hate reformers,
and dislike exceedingly to have their minds disturbed. They regard
convictions as very disagreeable things to have. They love forms, and
enjoy, beyond everything else, telling what a splendid tail their lion
has, and what a troublesome dog their neighbor is. Besides this
natural inclination to avoid personal responsibility is and always has
been the fact that every religionist has warned men against the
presumption and wickedness of thinking for themselves. The reason has
been denounced by all Christendom as the only unsafe guide. The church
has left nothing undone to prevent, man following the logic of his
brain. The plainest facts have been covered with the m