d upon music?
If that course had been pursued, would the human ears, in your
judgment, ever have been enriched with the divine symphonies of
Beethoven? Suppose the king, if there was one, and the priest, had said
"That crooked stick is the best plow that can be invented, the pattern
of that plow was given to a pious farmer in an exceedingly holy dream,
and that twisted straw is the ne plus ultra of all twisted things, and
any man who says he can make an improvement upon that plow, is an
atheist;" what, in your judgment, would have been the effect upon the
science of agriculture?

Now, all I ask is the same privilege to improve upon his religion as
upon his mechanical arts. Why don't we go back to that period to get
the telegraph? Because they were barbarians. And shall we go to
barbarians to get our religion? What is religion? Religion simply
embraces the duty of man to man. Religion is simply the science of
human duty and the duty of man to man--that is what it is. It is the
highest science of all. And all other sciences are as nothing, except
as they contribute to the happiness of man. The science of religion is
the highest of all, embracing all others. And shall we go to the
barbarians to learn the science of sciences? The nineteenth century
knows more about religion than all the centuries dead. There is more
real charity in the world today than ever before. There is more thought
today than ever before. Woman is glorified today as she never was
before in the history of the world. There are more happy families now
than ever before--more children treated as though they were tender
blossoms than as though they were brutes than in any other time or
nation. Religion is simply the duty a man owes to man; and when you
fall upon your knees and pray for something you know not of, you
neither benefit the one you pray for nor yourself. One ounce of
restitution is worth a million of repentances anywhere, and a man will
get along faster by helping himself a minute than by praying ten years
for somebody to help him. Suppose you were coming along the street,
and found a party of men and women on their knees praying to a bank,
and you asked them, "Have any of you borrowed any money of this bank?"
"No, but our fathers, they, too, prayed to this bank." "Did they ever
get any?" "No, not that we ever heard of." I would tell them to get up.
It is easier to earn it, and it is far more manly.

Our fathers in the "good old