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This file, its printout, or copies of either
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are to be copied and given away, but NOT sold.
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Bank of Wisdom, Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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The Works of ROBERT G. INGERSOLL
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**** ****
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PROGRESS.
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1860 & 1864
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(This is the first lecture ever delivered by
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Mr. Ingersoll. The stars on page one
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indicate missing words in the manuscript.)
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It is admitted by all that happiness is the only good,
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happiness in its highest and grandest sense and the most * *
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springs * * of * * refined * * generous * * .
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Conscience * * tends * * indirectly * * truly we * *
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physically * * to develop the wonderful powers of the mind is
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progress.
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It is impossible for men to become educated and refined
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without leisure and there can be no leisure without wealth and all
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wealth is produced by labor, nothing else. Nothing can * * the
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hands * * and * * fabrics * * service of civil * * and crumbles *
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* of all, and yet even in free America labor is not honored as it
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deserves.
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We should remember that the prosperity of the world depends
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upon the men who walk in the fresh furrows and through the rustling
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corn, upon those whose faces are radiant with the glare of
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furnaces, upon the delvers in dark mines, the workers in shops,
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upon those who give to the wintry air the ringing music of the axe,
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and upon those who wrestle with the wild waves of the raging sea.
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And it is from the surplus produced by labor that schools are
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built, that colleges and universities are founded and endowed. From
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this surplus the painter is paid for the immortal productions of
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the pencil. This pays the sculptor for chiseling the shapeless rock
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into forms of beauty almost divine, and the poet for singing the
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hopes, the loves and aspirations of the world.
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This surplus has erected all the palaces and temples, all the
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galleries of art, has given to us all the books in which we
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converse, as it were, with the dead kings of the human race, and
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has supplied us with all there is of elegance, of beauty and of
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refined happiness in the world.
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I am aware that the subject chosen by me is almost infinite
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and that in its broadest sense it is absolutely beyond the present
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comprehension of man.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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1
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PROGRESS.
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I am also aware that there are many opinions as to what
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progress really is, that what one calls progress, another
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denominates barbarism; that many share a wonderful veneration for
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all that is ancient, merely because it is ancient, and they see no
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beauty in anything from which they do not have to blow the dust of
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ages with the breath of praise.
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They say, no masters like the old, no governments like the
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ancient, no orators, no poets, no statesmen like those who have
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been dust for two thousand years. Others despise antiquity and
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admire only the modern, merely because it is modern. They find so
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much to condemn in the past, that they condemn all. I hope,
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however, that I have gratitude enough to acknowledge the
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obligations I am under to the great and heroic minds of antiquity,
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and that I have manliness and independence enough not to believe
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what they said merely because they said it, and that I have moral
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courage enough to advocate ideas, however modern they may be, if I
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believe that they are right. Truth is neither young nor old, is
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neither ancient nor modern, but is the same for all times and
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places and should be sought for with ceaseless activity, eagerly
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acknowledged, loved more than life, and abandoned -- never. In
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accordance with the idea that labor is the basis of all prosperity
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and happiness, is another idea or truth, and that is, that labor in
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order to make the laborer and the world at large happy, must be
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free. That the laborer must be a free man, the thinker must be
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free. I do not intend in what I may say upon this subject to carry
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you back to the remotest antiquity, -- back to Asia, the cradle of
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the world, where we could stand in the ashes and ruins of a
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civilization so old that history has not recorded even its decay.
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It will answer my present purpose to commence with the Middle Ages.
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In those times there was no freedom of either mind or body in
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Europe. Labor was despised, and a laborer was considered as
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scarcely above the beasts. Ignorance like a mantle covered the
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world, and superstition ran riot with the human imagination. The
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air was filled with angels, demons and monsters. Everything assumed
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the air of the miraculous. Credulity occupied the throne of reason
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and faith put out the eyes of the soul. A man to be distinguished
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had either to be a soldier or a monk. He could take his choice
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between killing and lying. You must remember that in those days
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nations carried on war as an end, not as a means. War and theology
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were the business of mankind. No man could win more than a bare
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existence by industry, much less fame and glory. Comparatively
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speaking, there was no commerce. Nations instead of buying and
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selling from and to each other, took what they wanted by brute
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force. And every Christian country maintained that it was no
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robbery to take the property of Mohammedans, and no murder to kill
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the owners with or without just cause of quarrel. Lord Bacon was
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the first man of note who maintained that a Christian country was
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bound to keep its plighted faith with an Infidel one. In those days
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reading and writing were considered very dangerous arts, and any
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layman who had acquired the art of reading was suspected of being
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a heretic or a wizard.
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It is almost impossible for us to conceive of the ignorance,
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the cruelty, the superstition and the mental blindness of that
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period. In reading the history of those dark and bloody years, I am
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amazed at the wickedness, the folly and presumption of mankind. And
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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2
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PROGRESS.
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yet, the solution of the whole matter is, they despised liberty;
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they hated freedom of mind and of body. They forged chains of
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superstition for the one and of iron for the other. They were ruled
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by that terrible trinity, the cowl, the sword and chain.
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You cannot form a correct opinion of those ages without
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reading the standard authors, so to speak, of that time, the laws
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then in force, and by ascertaining the habits and customs of the
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people, their mode of administering the laws, and the ideas that
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were commonly received as correct. No one believed that honest
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error could be innocent; no one dreamed of such a thing as
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religious freedom. In the fifteenth century the following law was
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in force in England: "That whatsoever they were that should read
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the Scriptures in the mother tongue, they should forfeit land,
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cattle, body, life, and goods from their heirs forever, and so be
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condemned for heretics to God, enemies to the crown, and most
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arrant traitors to the land." The next year after this law was in
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force, in one day thirty-nine were hanged for its violation and
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their bodies afterward burned.
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Laws equally unjust, bloody and cruel were in force in all
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parts of Europe. In the sixteenth century a man was burned in
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France because he refused to kneel to a procession of dirty monks.
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I could enumerate thousands of instances of the most horrid cruelty
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perpetrated upon men, women and even little children, for no other
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reason in the world than for a difference of opinion upon a subject
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that neither party knew anything about. But you are all, no doubt,
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perfectly familiar with the history of religious persecution.
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There is one thing, however, that is strange indeed, and that
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is that the reformers of those days, the men who rose against the
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horrid tyranny of the times, the moment they attained power,
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persecuted with a zeal and bitterness never excelled. Luther, one
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of the grand men of the world, cast in the heroic mould, although
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he gave utterance to the following sublime sentiment: "Every one
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has the right to read for himself that he may prepare himself to
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live and to die," still had no idea of what we call religious
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freedom. He considered universal toleration an error, so did
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Melancthon, and Erasmus, and yet, strange as it may appear, they
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were exercising the very right they denied to others, and
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maintaining their right with a courage and energy absolutely
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sublime.
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John Knox was only in favor of religious freedom when he was
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in the minority, and Baxter entertained the same sentiment.
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Castalio, a professor at Geneva, in Switzerland, was the first
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clergyman in Europe who declared the innocence of honest error, and
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who proclaimed himself in favor of universal toleration. The name
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of this man should never be forgotten. He had the goodness, the
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courage, although surrounded with prisons and inquisitions, and in
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the midst of millions of fierce bigots, to declare the innocence of
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honest error, and that every man had a right to worship the good
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God in his own way.
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For the utterance of this sublime sentiment his professorship
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was taken from him, he was driven from Geneva by John Calvin and
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his adherents, although he had belonged to their sect.
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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3
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PROGRESS.
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He was denounced as a child of the Devil, a dog of Satan, as
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a murderer of souls, as a corrupter of the faith, and as one who by
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his doctrines crucified the Savior afresh. Not content with merely
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driving him from his home, they pursued him absolutely to the
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grave, with a malignity that increased rather than diminished. You
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must not think that Calvin was alone in this; on the contrary he
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was fully sustained by public opinion, and would have been
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sustained even though he had procured the burning of the noble
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Castalio at the stake. I cite this instance not merely for the
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purpose of casting odium upon Calvin, but to show you what public
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opinion was at that time, when such things were ordinary
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transactions. Bodinus, a lawyer in France, about the same time
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advocated something like religious liberty, but public opinion was
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overwhelmingly against him and the people were at all times ready
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with torch and brand, chain, and fagot to get the abominable heresy
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out of the human mind, that a man had a right to think for himself.
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And yet Luther, Calvin, Knox and Baxter, in spite, as it were, of
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themselves, conferred a great and lasting benefit upon mankind; for
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what they did was at least in favor of individual judgment and one
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successful stand against the church produced others, all of which
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tended to establish universal toleration. In those times you will
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remember that failing to convert a man or woman by the ordinary
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means, they resorted to every engine of torture that the ingenuity
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of bigotry could devise; they crushed their feet in what they
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called iron boots; they roasted them upon slow fires; they plucked
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out their nails, and then into the bleeding quick thrust needles;
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and all this to convince them of the truth. I suppose that we
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should love our neighbor as ourselves.
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Montaigne was the first man who raised his voice against
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torture in France; a man blessed with so much common sense, that he
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was the most uncommon man of the age in which he lived. But what
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was one voice against the terrible cry of ignorant millions? -- a
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drowning man in the wild roar of the infinite sea. It is impossible
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to read the history of the long and seemingly hopeless war waged
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for religious freedom, without being filled with horror and
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disgust. Millions of men, women and children, at least one hundred
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millions of human beings with hopes and loves and aspirations like
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ourselves, have been sacrificed upon the altar of bigotry. They
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have perished at the stake, in prisons, by famine and by sword;
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they have died wandering, homeless, in deserts, groping in caves,
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until their blood cried from the earth for vengeance. But the
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principle, gathering strength from their weakness, nourished by
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blood and flame, rendered holier still by their sufferings --
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grander by their heroism, and immortal by their death, triumphed at
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last, and is now acknowledged by the whole civilized world.
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Enormous as the cost has been the principle is worth a thousand
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times as much. There must he freedom in religion, for without
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freedom there can be no real religion. And as for myself I glory in
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the fact that upon American soil that principle was first firmly
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established, and that the Constitution of the United States was the
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first of any great nation in which religious toleration was made
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one of the fundamental laws of the land. And it is not only the law
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of our country but the law is sustained by an enlightened public
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opinion. Without liberty there is no religion -- no worship. What
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light is to the eyes -- what air is to the lungs -- what love is to
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the heart, liberty is to the soul of man. Without liberty, the
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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4
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PROGRESS.
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brain is a dungeon, where the chained thoughts die with their
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pinions pressed against the hingeless doors.
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WITCHCRAFT.
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The next fact to which I call your attention is, that during
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the Middle Ages the people, the whole people, the learned and the
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ignorant, the masters and the slaves, the clergy, the lawyers,
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doctors and statesmen, all believed in witchcraft -- in the evil
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eye, and that the devil entered into people, into animals and even
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into insects to accomplish his dark designs. And all the people
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believed it their solemn duty to thwart the devil by all means in
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their power, and they accordingly set themselves at work hanging
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and burning everybody suspected of being in league with the Enemy
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of mankind. If you grant their premises, you justify their actions.
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If these persons had actually entered into partnership with the
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devil for the purpose of injuring their neighbors, the people would
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have been justified in exterminating them all. And the crime of
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witchcraft was proven over and over again in court after court in
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every town of Europe. Thousands of people who were charged with
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being in league with the devil confessed the crime, gave all the
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particulars of the bargain, told just what the devil said and what
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they replied, and exactly how the bargain was consummated, admitted
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in the presence of death, on the very edge of the grave, when they
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knew that the confession would confiscate all their property and
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leave their children homeless wanderers, and render their own names
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infamous after death.
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We can account for a man suffering death for what he believes
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to be right. He knows that he has the sympathy of all the truly
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good, and he hopes that his name will be gratefully remembered in
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the far future, and above all, he hopes to win the approval of a
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just God. But the man who confessed himself guilty of being a
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wizard, knew that his memory would be execrated and expected that
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his soul would be eternally lost. What motive could then have
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induced so many to confess? Strange as it is, I believe that they
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actually believed themselves guilty. They considered their case
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hopeless; they confessed and died without a prayer. These things
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are enough to make one think that sometimes the world becomes
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insane and that the earth is a vast asylum without a keeper. I
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repeat that I am convinced that the people that confessed
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themselves guilty believed that they were so. In the first place,
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they believed in witchcraft and that people often were possessed of
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Satan, and when they were accused the fright and consternation
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produced by the accusation, in connection with their belief, often
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produced insanity or something akin to it, and the poor creatures
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charged with a crime that it was impossible to disprove, deserted
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and abhorred by their friends, left alone with their superstitions
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and fears, driven to despair, looked upon death as a blessed relief
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from a torture that you and I cannot at this day understand. People
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were charged with the most impossible crimes. In the time of James
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the First, a man was burned in Scotland for having produced a storm
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at sea for the purpose of drowning one of the royal family. A woman
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was tried before Sir Matthew Hale, one of the most learned and
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celebrated lawyers of England, for having caused children to vomit
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crooked pins. She was also charged with nursing demons. Of course
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she was found guilty, and the learned Judge charged the jury that
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Bank of Wisdom
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Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
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5
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PROGRESS.
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there was no doubt as to the existence of witches, that all
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history, sacred and profane, and that the experience of every
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country proved it beyond any manner of doubt. And the woman was
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either hanged or burned for a crime for which it was impossible for
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her to be guilty. In those times they also believed in Lycanthropy
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-- that is, that persons of whom the devil had taken possession
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could assume the appearance of wolves.
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One instance is related where a man was attacked by what
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appeared to be a wolf. He defended himself and succeeded in cutting
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off one of the wolf's paws, whereupon the wolf ran and the man
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picked up the paw and putting it in his pocket went home. When he
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took the paw out of his pocket it had changed to a human hand, and
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his wife sat in the house with one of her hands gone and the stump
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of her arm bleeding. He denounced his wife as a witch, she
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confessed the crime and was burned at the stake. People were burned
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for causing frosts in the summer, for destroying crops with hail,
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for causing cows to become dry, and even for souring beer. The life
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of no one was secure, malicious enemies had only to charge one with
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witchcraft, prove a few odd sayings and queer actions to secure the
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death of their victim. And this belief in witchcraft was so intense
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that to express a doubt upon the subject was to be suspected and
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probably executed. Believing that animals were also taken
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possession of by evil spirits and also believing that if they
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killed an animal containing one of the evil spirits that they
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caused the death of the spirit, they absolutely tried animals,
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convicted and executed them. At Basle, in 1474, a rooster was
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tried, charged with having laid an egg, and as rooster eggs were
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used only in making witch ointment it was a serious charge, and
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everyone of course admitted that the devil must have been the
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cause, as roosters could not very well lay eggs without some help.
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And the egg having been produced in court, the rooster was duly
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convicted and he together with his miraculous egg were publicly and
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with all due solemnity burned in the public square. So a hog and
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six pigs were tried for having killed, and partially eaten a child,
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the hog was convicted and executed, but the pigs were acquitted on
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the ground of their extreme youth. As late as 1740 a cow was
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absolutely tried on a charge of being possessed of the devil. Our
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forefathers used to rid themselves of rats, leeches, locusts and
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vermin by pronouncing what they called a public exorcism.
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On some occasions animals were received as witnesses in
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judicial proceedings.
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The law was in some of the countries of Europe, that if a
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man's house was broken into between sunset and sunrise and the
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owner killed the intruder, it should be considered justifiable
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homicide.
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But it was also considered that it was just possible that a
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man living alone might entice another to his house in the night-
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time, kill him and then pretend that his victim was a robber. In
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order to prevent this, it was enacted that when a person was killed
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by a man living alone and under such circumstances the solitary
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householder should not be held innocent unless he produced in court
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some animal, a dog or a cat, that had been an inmate of the house
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and had witnessed the death of the person killed. The prisoner was
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||
Bank of Wisdom
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||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
6
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PROGRESS.
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then compelled in the presence of such animal to make a solemn
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declaration of his innocence, and if the animal failed to
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contradict him, he was declared guiltless, -- the law taking it for
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granted that the Deity would cause a miraculous manifestation by a
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dumb animal, rather than allow a murderer to escape. It was the law
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in England that any one convicted of a crime, could appeal to what
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was called corsned or morsel of execration. This was a piece of
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cheese or bread of about an ounce in weight, which was first
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consecrated with a form of exorcism desiring that the Almighty, if
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the man were guilty, would cause convulsions and paleness, and that
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it might stick in his throat, but that it might if the man were
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innocent, turn to health and nourishment. Godwin, the Earl of Kent,
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during the reign of Edward the Confessor, appealed to the corsned,
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which sticking in his throat, produced death. There were also
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trials by water and by fire. Persons were made to handle red hot
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iron, and if it burned them their guilt was established; so their
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hands and feet were tied, and they were thrown into the water, and
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if they sank they were pronounced guilty and allowed to drown. I
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||
give these instances to show you what has happened, and what always
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will happen, in countries where ignorance prevails, and people
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abandon the great standard of reason. And also to show to you that
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scarcely any man, however great, can free himself of the
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superstitions of his time. Kepler, one of the greatest men of the
|
||
world, and an astronomer second to none, although he plucked from
|
||
the stars the secrets of the universe, was an astrologer and
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||
thought he could predict the career of any man by finding what star
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was in the ascendant at his birth. This infinitely foolish stuff
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||
was religiously believed by him, merely because he had been raised
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in an atmosphere of boundless credulity. Tycho Brahe, another
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astronomer who has been, and is called the prince of astronomers --
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||
not only believed in astrology, but actually kept an idiot in his
|
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service, whose disconnected and meaningless words he carefully
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wrote down and then put them together in such a manner as to make
|
||
prophecies, and then he patiently and confidently awaited their
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fulfillment.
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||
Luther believed that he had actually seen the devil not only,
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but that he had had discussions with him upon points of theology.
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||
On one occasion getting excited, he threw an ink-stand at his
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majesty's head, and the ink stain is still to be seen on the wall
|
||
where the stand was broken. The devil I believe, was untouched, he
|
||
probably having an inkling of Luther's intention, made a successful
|
||
dodge.
|
||
|
||
In the time of Charles the Fifth, Emperor of Germany,
|
||
Stoeffler, a noted mathematician and astronomer, a man of great
|
||
learning, made an astronomical calculation according to the great
|
||
science of astrology and ascertained that the world was to be
|
||
visited by another deluge. This prediction was absolutely believed
|
||
by the leading men of the empire not only, but of all Europe. The
|
||
commissioner general of the army of Charles the Fifth recommended
|
||
that a survey be made of the country by competent men in order to
|
||
find out the highest land. But as it was uncertain how high the
|
||
water would rise this idea was abandoned.
|
||
|
||
Thousands of people left their homes in low lands, by the
|
||
rivers and near the sea and sought the more elevated ground.
|
||
Immense suffering was produced. People in some instances abandoned
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
7
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
the aged, the sick and the infirm to the tender mercies of the
|
||
expected flood, so anxious were they to reach some place of
|
||
security.
|
||
|
||
At Toulouse, in France, the people actually built an ark and
|
||
stocked it with provisions, and it was not till long after the day
|
||
upon which the flood was to have come, had passed, that the people
|
||
recovered from their fright and returned to their homes. About the
|
||
same time it was currently reported and believed that a child had
|
||
been born in Silesia with a golden tooth. The people were again
|
||
filled with wonder and consternation. They were satisfied that some
|
||
great evil was coming upon mankind. At last it was solved by some
|
||
chapter in Daniel wherein is predicted somebody with a golden head.
|
||
Such stories would never have gained credence only for the reason
|
||
that the supernatural was expected. Anything in the ordinary course
|
||
of nature was not worth telling. The human mind was in chains; it
|
||
had been deformed by slavery. Reason was a trembling coward, and
|
||
every production of the mind was deformed, every idea was a
|
||
monster. Almost every law was unjust. Their religion was nothing
|
||
more or less than monsters worshiping an imaginary monster. Science
|
||
could not, properly speaking, exist. Their histories were the
|
||
grossest and most palpable falsehoods, and they filled all Europe
|
||
with the most shocking absurdities. The histories were all written
|
||
by the monks and bishops, all of whom were intensely superstitious,
|
||
and equally dishonest. Everything they did was a pious fraud. They
|
||
wrote as if they had been eye-witnesses of every occurrence that
|
||
they related. They entertained, and consequently expressed, no
|
||
doubt as to any particular, and in case of any difficulty they
|
||
always had a few miracles ready just suited for the occasion, and
|
||
the people never for an instant doubted the absolute truth of every
|
||
statement that they made. They wrote the history of every country
|
||
of any importance. They related all the past and present, and
|
||
predicted nearly all the future, with an ignorant impudence
|
||
actually sublime. They traced the order of St. Michael in France
|
||
back to the Archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder
|
||
of a chivalric order in heaven itself. They also said that the
|
||
Tartars originally came from hell, and that they were called
|
||
Tartars because Tartarus was one of the names of perdition. They
|
||
declared that Scotland was so called after Scota, a daughter of
|
||
Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland and afterward invaded Scotland and
|
||
took it by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter
|
||
addressed to the Pope in the 14th century and was alluded to as a
|
||
well-known fact. The letter was written by some of the highest
|
||
dignitaries of the church and by direction of the king himself.
|
||
Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the 13th century, gave
|
||
the world the following piece of valuable information: "It is well
|
||
known that Mohammed originally was a Cardinal and became a heretic
|
||
because he failed in his design of being elected Pope."
|
||
|
||
The same gentleman informs us that Mohammed having drank to
|
||
excess fell drunk by the roadside, and in that condition was killed
|
||
by pigs. And this is the reason, says he, that his followers abhor
|
||
pork even unto this day. Another historian of about the same
|
||
period, tells us that one of the popes cut off his hand because it
|
||
had been kissed by an improper person, and that the hand was still
|
||
in the Lateran at Rome, where it had been miraculously preserved
|
||
from corruption for over five hundred years. After that occurrence,
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
8
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
says he, the Pope's toe was substituted, which accounts for this
|
||
practice. He also has the goodness to inform his readers that Nero
|
||
was in the habit of vomiting frogs. Some of the croakers of the
|
||
present day against progress would, I think, be the better of such
|
||
a vomit. The history of Charlemagne was written by Turpin the
|
||
Archbishop of Rheims, and received the formal approbation of the
|
||
Pope. In this it is asserted that the walls of a city fell down in
|
||
answer to prayer; that Charlemagne was opposed by a giant called
|
||
Fenacute who was a descendant of the ancient Goliath; that forty
|
||
men were sent to attack this giant, and that he took them under his
|
||
arms and quietly carried them away. At last Orlando engaged him
|
||
singly; not meeting with the success that he anticipated, he
|
||
changed his tactics and commenced a theological discussion; warming
|
||
with his subject he pressed forward and suddenly stabbed his
|
||
opponent, inflicting a mortal wound. After the death of the giant,
|
||
Charlemagne easily conquered the whole country and divided it among
|
||
his sons.
|
||
|
||
The history of the Britons, written by the Archdeacons of
|
||
Monmouth and Oxford, was immensely popular. According to their
|
||
account, Brutus, a Roman, conquered England, built London, called
|
||
the country Britain after himself. During his time it rained blood
|
||
for three days. At another time a monster came from the sea, and
|
||
after having devoured a great many common people, finally swallowed
|
||
the king himself. They say that King Arthur was not born like
|
||
ordinary mortals, but was formed by a magical contrivance made by
|
||
a wizard. That he was particularly lucky in killing giants, that he
|
||
killed one in France who used to eat several people every day, and
|
||
that this giant was clothed with garments made entirely of the
|
||
beards of kings that he had killed and eaten. To cap the climax,
|
||
one of the authors of this book was promoted for having written an
|
||
authentic history of his country. Another writer of the 15th
|
||
century says that after Ignatius was dead they found impressed upon
|
||
his heart the Greek word Theos. In all historical compositions
|
||
there was an incredible want of common honesty. The great historian
|
||
Eusebius ingenuously remarks that in his history he omitted
|
||
whatever tended to discredit the church and magnified whatever
|
||
conduced to her glory. The same glorious principle was adhered to
|
||
by most, if not all, of the writers of those days. They wrote and
|
||
the people believed that the tracks of Pharaoh's chariot wheels,
|
||
were still impressed upon the sands of the Red Sea and could not be
|
||
obliterated either by the winds or waves.
|
||
|
||
The next subject to which I call your attention is the
|
||
wonderful progress in the mechanical arts. Animals use the weapons
|
||
nature has furnished, and those only -- the beak, the claw, the
|
||
tusk, the teeth. The barbarian uses a club, a stone. As man
|
||
advances he makes tools with which to fashion his weapons; he
|
||
discovers the best material to be used in their construction. The
|
||
next thing was to find some power to assist him -- that is to say,
|
||
the weight of falling water, or the force of the wind. He then
|
||
creates a force, so to speak, by changing water to steam, and with
|
||
that he impels machines that can do almost everything but think.
|
||
You will observe that the ingenuity of man is first exercised in
|
||
the construction of weapons. There were splendid Damascus blades
|
||
when plowing was done with a crooked stick. There were complete
|
||
suits of armor on backs that had never felt a shirt. The world was
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
9
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
full of inventions to destroy life before there were any to prolong
|
||
it or make it endurable. Murder was always a science -- medicine is
|
||
not one yet. Scalping was known and practiced long before Barret
|
||
discovered the Hair Regenerator. The destroyers have always been
|
||
honored. The useful have always been despised. In ancient times
|
||
agriculture was known only to slaves. The low, the ignorant, the
|
||
contemptible, cultivated the soil. To work was to be nobody.
|
||
Mechanics were only one degree above the farmer. In short, labor
|
||
was disgraceful. Idleness was the badge of gentle blood. The fields
|
||
being poorly cultivated produced but little at the best. Only a few
|
||
kinds of crops were raised. The result was frequent famine and
|
||
constant suffering. One country could not be supplied from another
|
||
as now; the roads were always horrible, and besides all this, every
|
||
country was at war with nearly every other. This state of things
|
||
lasted until a few years ago.
|
||
|
||
Let me show you the condition of England at the beginning of
|
||
the eighteenth century. At that time London was the most populous
|
||
capital in Europe, yet it was dirty, ill built, without any
|
||
sanitary provisions whatever. The deaths were one in 23 each year.
|
||
Now in a much more crowded population they are not one in forty.
|
||
Much of the country was then heath and swamp. Almost within sight
|
||
of London there was a tract, twenty-five miles round, almost in a
|
||
state of nature; there were but three houses upon it. In the rainy
|
||
season the roads were almost impassable. Through gullies filled
|
||
with mud, carriages were dragged by oxen. Between places of great
|
||
importance the roads were little known, and a principal mode of
|
||
transport was by pack horses, of which passengers took advantage by
|
||
stowing themselves away between the packs. The usual charge for
|
||
freight was 30 cents per ton a mile. After a while, what they were
|
||
pleased to call flying coaches were established. They could move
|
||
from thirty to fifty miles a day. Many persons thought the risk so
|
||
great that it was tempting Providence to get into one of them. The
|
||
mail bag was carried on horseback at five miles an hour. A penny
|
||
post had been established in the city, but many long-headed men,
|
||
who knew what they were saying, denounced it as a popish
|
||
contrivance. Only a few years before, parliament had resolved that
|
||
all pictures in the royal collection which contained
|
||
representations of Jesus or the Virgin Mary should be burned. Greek
|
||
statues were handed over to Puritan stone masons to be made decent.
|
||
Lewis Meggleton had given himself out as the last and the greatest
|
||
of the prophets, having power to save or damn. He had also
|
||
discovered that God was only six feet high and the sun four miles
|
||
off. There were people in England as savage as our Indians. The
|
||
women, half naked, would chant some wild measure, while the men
|
||
would brandish their dirks and dance. There were thirty-four
|
||
counties without a printer. Social discipline was wretched. The
|
||
master flogged his apprentice, the pedagogue his scholar, the
|
||
husband his wife; and I am ashamed to say that whipping has not
|
||
been abolished in our schools. It is a relic of barbarism and
|
||
should not be tolerated one moment. It is brutal, low and
|
||
contemptible. The teacher that administers such punishment is no
|
||
more to blame than the parents that allow it. Every gentleman and
|
||
lady should use his or her influence to do away with this vile and
|
||
infamous practice. In those days public punishments were all
|
||
brutal. Men and women were put in the pillory and then pelted with
|
||
brick-bats, rotten eggs and dead cats, by the rabble. The whipping-
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
10
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
post was then an institution in England as it is now in the
|
||
enlightened State of Delaware. Criminals were drawn and quartered;
|
||
others, were disemboweled and hung and their bodies suspended in
|
||
chains to rot in the air. The houses of the people in the country
|
||
were huts, thatched with straw. Anybody who could get fresh meat
|
||
once a week was considered rich. Children six years old had to
|
||
labor. In London the houses were of wood or plaster, the streets
|
||
filthy beyond expression, even muddier than Bloomington is now.
|
||
After nightfall a passenger went about at his peril, for chamber
|
||
windows were opened and slop pails unceremoniously emptied. There
|
||
were no lamps in the streets, but plenty of highwaymen and robbers.
|
||
|
||
The morals of the people corresponded, as they generally do,
|
||
to their physical condition. It is said that the clergy did what
|
||
they could to make the people pious, but they could not accomplish
|
||
much. You cannot convert a man when he is hungry. He will not
|
||
accept better doctrines until he gets better clothes, and he won't
|
||
have more faith till he gets more food. Besides this, the clergy
|
||
were a little below par, so much so that Queen Elizabeth issued an
|
||
order that no clergyman should presume to marry a servant girl
|
||
without the consent of her master or mistress. During the same time
|
||
the condition of France and indeed of all Europe was even worse
|
||
than England. What has changed the condition of Great Britain? More
|
||
than any and everything else, the inventions of her mechanics. The
|
||
old moral method was and always will be a failure. If you wish to
|
||
better the condition of a people morally, better them physically.
|
||
About the close of the 18th Century, Watt, Arkwright, Hargreave,
|
||
Crompton, Cartwright, invented the steam engine, the spring frame,
|
||
the jenny, the mule, the power loom, the carding machine and a
|
||
hundred other minor inventions, and put it in the power of England
|
||
to monopolize the markets of the world. Her machinery soon became
|
||
equal to 30,000,000 of men. In a few years the population was
|
||
doubled and the wealth quadrupled; and England became the first
|
||
nation of the world through her inventors. her merchants, her
|
||
mechanics, and in spite of her statesmen, her priests and her
|
||
nobles. England began to spin for the world, cotton began to be
|
||
universally worn, clean shirts began to be seen. The most cunning
|
||
spinners of India could make a thread over 100 miles long from one
|
||
pound of cotton. The machines of England have produced one over
|
||
1000 miles in length from the same quantity. In a short time
|
||
Stephenson invented the locomotive. Railroads began to be built.
|
||
Fulton gave to the world the steamboat, and commerce became
|
||
independent of the winds. There are already railroads enough in the
|
||
United States to make a double track around the world. Man has
|
||
lengthened his arms. He reaches to every country and takes what he
|
||
wants; the world is before him; he helps himself. There can be no
|
||
more famine. If there is no food in this country, the boat and the
|
||
car will bring it from another.
|
||
|
||
We can have the luxuries of every climate. A majority of the
|
||
people now live better than the king used to do. Poor Solomon with
|
||
his thousand wives, and no carpets, his great temple, and no gas
|
||
light! A thousand women, and not a pin in the house; no stoves, no
|
||
cooking range, no baking powder, no potatoes -- think of it!
|
||
Breakfast without potatoes! Plenty of wisdom and old saws -- but no
|
||
green corn; never heard of succotash in his whole life. No clean
|
||
clothes, no music, if you except a jew's-harp, no ice water, no
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
11
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
skates, no carriages, because there was not a decent road in all
|
||
his dominions. Plenty of theology but no tobacco, no books, no
|
||
pictures, not a picture in all Palestine, not a piece of statuary,
|
||
not a plough that would scour. No tea, no coffee; he never heard of
|
||
any place of amusement, never was at a theater, or a circus. "Seven
|
||
up" was then unknown to the world. He couldn't even play billiards,
|
||
with all his knowledge, never had an idea of woman's rights, or
|
||
universal suffrage; never went to school a day in his life, and
|
||
cared no more about the will of the people than Andy Johnson.
|
||
|
||
The inventors have helped more than any other class to make
|
||
the world what it is; the workers and the thinkers, the poor and
|
||
the grand; labor and learning, industry and intelligence; Watt and
|
||
Descartes, Fulton and Montaigne, Stephenson and Kepler, Crompton
|
||
and Comte, Franklin and Voltaire, Morse and Buckle, Draper and
|
||
Spencer, and hundreds more that I could mention. The inventors, the
|
||
workers, the thinkers, the mechanics, the surgeons, the
|
||
philosophers -- these are the Atlases upon whose shoulders rests
|
||
the great fabric of modern civilization.
|
||
|
||
LANGUAGE.
|
||
|
||
In order to show you that the most abject superstition
|
||
pervaded every department of human knowledge, or of ignorance
|
||
rather, allow me to give you a few of their ideas upon language. It
|
||
was universally believed that all languages could he traced hack to
|
||
the Hebrew; that the Hebrew was the original language, and every
|
||
fact inconsistent with that idea was discarded. In consequence of
|
||
this belief all efforts to investigate the science of language were
|
||
utterly fruitless. After a time, the Hebrew idea falling into
|
||
disrepute, other languages claimed the honor of being the original
|
||
ones.
|
||
|
||
Andre Kempe published a work in 1569, on the language of
|
||
Paradise, in which he maintained that God spoke to Adam in Swedish;
|
||
that Adam answered in Danish and that the serpent (which appears
|
||
quite probable) spoke to Eve in French. Erro, in a book published
|
||
at Madrid, took the ground that Basque was the language spoken in
|
||
the Garden of Eden. But in 1580, Goropius published his celebrated
|
||
work at Antwerp, in which he put the whole matter at rest by
|
||
proving that the language spoken in Paradise was nothing more or
|
||
less than plain Holland Dutch. The real founder of the present
|
||
science of language was a German, Leibnitz -- a contemporary of Sir
|
||
Isaac Newton. He discarded the idea that all language could be
|
||
traced to an original one. That language was, so to speak, a
|
||
natural growth. Actual experience teaches us that this must be
|
||
true. The ancient sages of Egypt had a vocabulary, according to
|
||
Bunsen, of only about six hundred and eighty-five words, exclusive
|
||
of proper names. The English language has at least one hundred
|
||
thousand.
|
||
|
||
GEOGRAPHY.
|
||
|
||
In the 6th century a monk by the name of Cosmos wrote a kind
|
||
of orthodox geography and astronomy combined. He pretended that it
|
||
was all in accordance with the Bible. According to him, the world
|
||
was composed, first, of a flat piece of land and circular; this
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
12
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
piece of land was entirely surrounded by water which was the ocean,
|
||
and beyond the strip of water was another circle of land; this
|
||
outside circular was the land inhabited by the old world before the
|
||
flood; Noah crossed the strip of water and landed on the central
|
||
piece where we now are; on the outside land was a high mountain
|
||
around which the sun and moon revolved; when the sun was behind the
|
||
mountain it was night, and when on the side next us it was day. He
|
||
also taught that on the outer edge of the outside circle of land
|
||
the firmament or sky was fastened, that it was made of some solid
|
||
material and turned over the world like an immense kettle. And it
|
||
was declared at that time that anyone who believed either more or
|
||
less on that subject than that book contained was a heretic and
|
||
deserved to be exterminated from the face of the earth. This was
|
||
authority until the discovery of America by Columbus. Cosmos said
|
||
the earth was flat; if it was round how could men on the other side
|
||
at the day of judgment see the coming of the Lord? At the risk of
|
||
being tiresome, I have said what I have, to show you the
|
||
productions of the mind when enslaved -- the consequences of
|
||
abandoning judgement and reason -- the effects of wide spread
|
||
ignorance and universal bigotry.
|
||
|
||
I want to convince you that every wrong is a viper that will
|
||
sooner or later strike with poisoned fangs the bosom that nourishes
|
||
it. You will ask what has produced this wonderful change in only
|
||
three hundred years. You will remember that in those days it was
|
||
said that all ghosts vanished at the dawn of day; that the sprites,
|
||
the spooks, the hobgoblins and all the monsters of the imagination
|
||
fled from the approaching sun. In 1441, printing was invented. in
|
||
the next century it became a power, and it has been flooding the
|
||
world with light from that time to this. The Press has been the
|
||
true Prometheus.
|
||
|
||
It has been, so to speak, the trumpet blown by the Gabriel of
|
||
Progress, until, from the graves of ignorance and superstition, the
|
||
people have leaped to grand and glorious life, spurning with swift
|
||
feet the dust of an infamous past.
|
||
|
||
When people read, they reason, when they reason they progress.
|
||
You must not think that the enemies of progress allowed books to be
|
||
published or read when they had the power to prevent it. The whole
|
||
power of the church, of the government, was arrayed upon the side
|
||
of ignorance. People found in the possession of books were often
|
||
executed. Printing, reading and writing were crimes. Anathemas were
|
||
hurled from tho Vatican against all who dared to publish a word in
|
||
favor of liberty or the sacred rights of man. The Inquisition was
|
||
founded on purpose to crush out every noble aspiration of the
|
||
heart. It was a war of darkness against light, of slavery against
|
||
liberty, of superstition against reason. I shall not attempt to
|
||
recount the horrors and tortures of the Inquisition. Suffice it to
|
||
say that they were equal to the most terrible and vivid pictures
|
||
even of Hell, and the Inquisitors were even more horrid fiends than
|
||
even real Perdition could boast. But in spite of priests, in spite
|
||
of kings, in spite of mitres, in spite of crowns, in spite of
|
||
Cardinals and Popes, books were published and books were read. Beam
|
||
after beam of light penetrated the darkness. Star after star arose
|
||
in the firmament of ignorance. The morning of Freedom began to
|
||
dawn. Driven to madness by the prospect of ultimate defeat, the
|
||
enemies of light persecuted with redoubled fury.
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
13
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
People were burned for saying that the earth was round, for
|
||
saying that the sun was the center of a system. A woman was
|
||
executed because she endeavored to allay the pains of a fever by
|
||
singing. The very name of Philosopher became a title of
|
||
proscription, and the slightest offenses were punished by death.
|
||
About the beginning of the sixteenth century Luther and Jerome, of
|
||
Prague, inaugurated the great Reformation in Germany, Ziska was at
|
||
work in Hungary, Zwinglius in Switzerland. The grand work went
|
||
forward in Denmark, in Sweden and in England. All this was
|
||
accomplished as early as 1534. They unmasked the corruption and
|
||
withstood the tyranny of the church.
|
||
|
||
With a zeal amounting to enthusiasm, with a courage that was
|
||
heroic, with an energy that never flagged, a determination that
|
||
brooked no opposition, with a firmness that defied torture and
|
||
death, this sublime band of reformers sprang to the attack.
|
||
Stronghold after stronghold was carried, and in a few short but
|
||
terrible years, the banner of the Reformation waved in triumph over
|
||
the bloody ensign of Saint Peter. The soul roused from the slumbers
|
||
of a thousand years began to think. When slaves begin to reason,
|
||
slavery begins to die. The invention of powder had released
|
||
millions from the army, and left them to prosecute the arts of
|
||
peace. Industry began to be remunerative and respectable. Science
|
||
began to unfold the wings that will finally fill the heavens.
|
||
Descartes announced to the world the sublime truth that the
|
||
Universe is governed by law.
|
||
|
||
Commerce began to unfold her wings. People of different
|
||
countries began to get acquainted. Christians found that Mohammedan
|
||
gold was not the less valuable on account of the doctrines of its
|
||
owners. Telescopes began to be pointed toward the stars. The
|
||
Universe was getting immense. The Earth was growing small. It was
|
||
discovered that a man could be healthy without being a Catholic.
|
||
Innumerable agencies were at work dispelling darkness and creating
|
||
light. The supernatural began to be abandoned, and mankind
|
||
endeavored to account for all physical phenomena by physical laws.
|
||
The light of reason was irradiating the world, and from that light,
|
||
as from the approach of the sun, the ghosts and specters of
|
||
superstition wrapped their sheets around their attenuated bodies
|
||
and vanished into thin air. Other inventions rapidly followed. The
|
||
wonderful power of steam was made known to the world by Watts and
|
||
by Fulton. Neptune was frightened from the sea. The locomotive was
|
||
given to mankind by Stephenson; the telegraph by Franklin and
|
||
Morse. The rush of the ship, the scream of the locomotive, and the
|
||
electric flash have frightened the monsters of ignorance from the
|
||
world, and have left nothing above us but the heaven's eternal
|
||
blue, filled with glittering planets wheeling through immensity in
|
||
accordance with LAW. True religion is a subordination of the
|
||
passions and interests to the perceptions of the intellect. But
|
||
when religion was considered the end of life instead of a means of
|
||
happiness, it overshadowed all other interests and became the
|
||
destroyer of mankind. It became a hydra-headed monster -- a serpent
|
||
reaching in terrible coils from the heavens and thrusting its
|
||
thousand fangs into the bleeding, quivering hearts of men.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
14
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
SLAVERY.
|
||
|
||
I have endeavored thus far to show you some of the results
|
||
produced by enslaving the human mind. I now call your attention to
|
||
another terrible phase of this subject; the enslavement of the
|
||
body. Slavery is a very ancient institution, yes, about as ancient
|
||
as robbery, theft and murder, and is based upon them all.
|
||
|
||
Springing from the same fountain, that a man is not the owner
|
||
of his soul, is the doctrine that he is not the owner of his body.
|
||
The two are always found together, supported by precisely the same
|
||
arguments, and attended by the same infamous acts of cruelty. From
|
||
the earliest time, slavery has existed in all countries, and among
|
||
all people until recently. Pufendorf said that slavery was
|
||
originally established by contract. Voltaire replied, "Show me the
|
||
original contract, and if it is signed by the party that was to be
|
||
a slave I will believe you." You will bear in mind that the slavery
|
||
of which I am now speaking is white slavery.
|
||
|
||
Greeks enslaved one another as well as those captured in war.
|
||
Coriolanus scrupled not to make slaves of his own countrymen
|
||
captured in civil war.
|
||
|
||
Julius Caesar sold to the highest bidder at one time fifty-
|
||
three thousand prisoners of war all of whom were white. Hannibal
|
||
exposed to sale thirty thousand captives at one time, all of whom
|
||
were Roman citizens. In Rome, men were sold into bondage in order
|
||
to pay their debts. In Germany, men often hazarded their freedom on
|
||
the throwing of dice. The Barbary States held white Christians in
|
||
slavery in this, the 19th century. There were white slaves in
|
||
England as late as 1574. There were white slaves in Scotland until
|
||
the end of the 18th century.
|
||
|
||
These Scotch slaves were colliers and salters. They were
|
||
treated as real estate and passed with deed to the mines in which
|
||
they worked.
|
||
|
||
It was also the law that no collier could work in any mine
|
||
except the one to which he belonged. It was also the law that their
|
||
children could follow no other occupation than that of their
|
||
fathers. This slavery absolutely existed in Scotland until the
|
||
beginning of the glorious 19th century.
|
||
|
||
Some of the Roman nobles were the owners of as many as twenty
|
||
thousand slaves.
|
||
|
||
The common people of France were in slavery for fourteen
|
||
hundred years. They were transferred with land, and women were
|
||
often seen assisting cattle to pull the plough, and yet people have
|
||
the impudence to say that black slavery is right, because the
|
||
blacks have always been slaves in their own country. I answer so
|
||
have the whites until very recently. In the good old days when
|
||
might was right and when kings and popes stood by the people, and
|
||
protected the people, and talked about "holy oil and divine right,"
|
||
the world was filled with slaves. The traveler standing amid the
|
||
ruins of ancient cities and empires, seeing on every side the
|
||
fallen pillar and the prostrate wall, asks why did these cities
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
15
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
fall, why did these empires crumble? And the Ghost of the Past, the
|
||
wisdom of ages, answers: These temples, these palaces, these
|
||
cities, the ruins of which you stand upon were built by tyranny and
|
||
injustice. The hands that built them were unpaid. The backs that
|
||
bore the burdens also bore the marks of the lash. They were built
|
||
by slaves to satisfy the vanity and ambition of thieves and
|
||
robbers. For these reasons they are dust.
|
||
|
||
Their civilization was a lie. Their laws merely regulated
|
||
robbery and established theft. They bought and sold the bodies and
|
||
souls of men, and the mournful winds of desolation, sighing amid
|
||
their crumbling ruins, is a voice of prophetic warning to those who
|
||
would repeat the infamous experiment. From the ruins of Babylon, of
|
||
Carthage, of Athens, of Palmyra, of Thebes, of Rome, and across the
|
||
great desert, over that sad and solemn sea of sand, from the land
|
||
of the pyramids, over the fallen Sphinx and from the lips of Memnon
|
||
the same voice, the same warning and uttering the great truth, that
|
||
no nation founded upon slavery, either of body or mind, can stand.
|
||
|
||
And yet, to-day, there are thousands upon thousands
|
||
endeavoring to build the temples and cities and to administer our
|
||
Government upon the old plan. They are makers of brick without
|
||
straw. They are bowing themselves beneath hods of untempered
|
||
mortar. They are the babbling builders of another Babel, a Babel of
|
||
mud upon a foundation of sand.
|
||
|
||
Notwithstanding the experience of antiquity as to the terrible
|
||
effects of slavery, bondage was the rule, and liberty the
|
||
exception, during the Middle Ages not only, but for ages afterward.
|
||
|
||
The same causes that led to the liberation of mind also
|
||
liberated the body. Free the mind allow men to write and publish
|
||
and read, and one by one the shackles will drop, broken, in the
|
||
dust. This truth was always known, and for that reason slaves have
|
||
never been allowed to read. It has always been a crime to teach a
|
||
slave. The intelligent prefer death to slavery. Education is the
|
||
most radical abolitionist in the world. To teach the alphabet is to
|
||
inaugurate revolution. To build a schoolhouse is to construct a
|
||
fort. Every library is an arsenal, and every truth is a monitor,
|
||
iron-clad and steel-plated.
|
||
|
||
Do not think that white slavery was abolished without a
|
||
struggle. The men who opposed white slavery were ridiculed, were
|
||
persecuted, driven from their homes, mobbed, hanged, tortured and
|
||
burned. They were denounced as having only one idea, by men who had
|
||
none. They were called fanatics by men who were so insane as to
|
||
suppose that the laws of a petty prince were greater than those of
|
||
the Universe. Crime made faces at virtue, and honesty was an
|
||
outcast beggar. In short, I cannot better describe to you the
|
||
manner in which the friends of slavery acted at that time, than by
|
||
saying that they acted precisely as they used to do in the United
|
||
States. White slavery, established by kidnapping and piracy,
|
||
sustained by torture and infinite cruelty, was defended to the very
|
||
last.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
16
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
Let me now call your attention to one of the most: immediate
|
||
causes of the abolition of white slavery in Europe. There were
|
||
during the Middle Ages three great classes of people: the common
|
||
people, the clergy and the nobility. All these people could,
|
||
however, be divided into two classes, namely, the robbed and the
|
||
robbers. The feudal lords were jealous of the king, the king afraid
|
||
of the lords, the clergy always siding with the stronger party. The
|
||
common people had only to do the work, the fighting, and to pay the
|
||
taxes, as by the law the property of the nobles was exempt from
|
||
taxation. The consequence was, in every war between the nobles and
|
||
the king, each party endeavored by conciliation to get the peasants
|
||
upon their side. When the clergy were on the side of the king they
|
||
created dissension between the people and the nobles by telling
|
||
them that the nobles were tyrants. When they were on the side of
|
||
the nobles they told the people that the king was a tyrant. At last
|
||
the people believed both, and the old adage was verified, that when
|
||
thieves fall out honest men get their dues.
|
||
|
||
By virtue of the civil and religious wars of Europe slavery
|
||
was abolished, and the French Revolution, one of the grandest pages
|
||
in all history, was, so to speak, the exterminator of white
|
||
slavery. In that terrible period the people who had borne the yoke
|
||
for fourteen hundred years, rising from the dust, casting their
|
||
shackles from them, fiercely avenged their wrongs. A mob of twenty
|
||
millions driven to desperation, in the sublimity of despair, in the
|
||
sacred name of Liberty cried for vengeance. They reddened the earth
|
||
with the blood of their masters. They trampled beneath their feet
|
||
the great army of human vermin that had lived upon their labor.
|
||
They filled the air with the ruins of temples and thrones, and with
|
||
bloody hands tore in pieces the altar upon which their rights had
|
||
been offered by an impious church. They scorned the superstitions
|
||
of the past not only, but they scorned the past; for the past to
|
||
them was only wrong, imposition and outrage. The French Revolution
|
||
was the inauguration of a new era. The lava of freedom long buried
|
||
beneath a mountain of wrong and injustice at last burst forth,
|
||
overwhelming the Pompeii and Herculaneum of priestcraft and
|
||
tyranny. As soon as white slavery began to decay in Europe, and
|
||
while the condition of the white slaves was improving about the
|
||
middle of the 16th century in 1541, Alonzo Gonzales, of Portugal,
|
||
pointed out to his countrymen a new field of operations, a new
|
||
market for human flesh, and in a short time the African slave-trade
|
||
with all its unspeakable honors was inaugurated.
|
||
|
||
This trade has been the great crime of modern times. It is
|
||
almost impossible to conceive that nations who professed to be
|
||
Christian, or even in any degree civilized, should have engaged in
|
||
this infamous traffic. Yet nearly all of the nations of Europe
|
||
engaged in the slave-trade, legalized it, protected it, fostered
|
||
the practice, and vied with each other in acts, the bare recital of
|
||
which is enough to make the heart stand still.
|
||
|
||
It has been calculated that for years, at least 400,000
|
||
Africans were either killed or enslaved annually. They crammed
|
||
their ships so full of these unfortunate wretches, that, as a
|
||
general thing, about ten per cent. died of suffocation on the
|
||
voyage. They were treated like wild beasts. In times of danger they
|
||
were thrown into the sea. Remember that this horrible traffic
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
17
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
commenced in the middle of the 16th century, was carried on by
|
||
nations pretending to Christian civilization, and when do you think
|
||
it was abolished by some of the principal countries? In England,
|
||
Wilberforce and Clarkson dedicated their lives to the abolition of
|
||
the slave-trade. They were hated and despised. They persevered for
|
||
twenty years, and it was not until the 25th of March, 1808, that
|
||
England pronounced the infamous traffic in human flesh illegal, and
|
||
the rejoicing in England was redoubled on receiving the news that
|
||
the United States had done the same thing. After a time, those
|
||
engaged in the slave-trade were declared pirates.
|
||
|
||
On the 28th day of August, 1833, England abolished slavery
|
||
throughout the British Colonies, thus giving liberty to nearly one
|
||
million slaves.
|
||
|
||
The United States was then the greatest slave-holding power in
|
||
the civilized world.
|
||
|
||
We are all acquainted with the history of slavery in this
|
||
country. We know that it corrupted our people, that it has drenched
|
||
our land in fraternal blood. that it has clad our country in
|
||
mourning for the loss of 300,000 of her bravest sons; that it
|
||
carried us back to the darkest ages of the world, that it led us to
|
||
the very brink of destruction, forced us to the shattered gates of
|
||
eternal ruin, death and annihilation. But Liberty rising above
|
||
party prejudice, Freedom lifting itself above all other
|
||
considerations, "As some tall cliff that lifts its awful form,
|
||
|
||
Swells from the vale, and midway leaves the storm, --
|
||
|
||
Though round its breast the rolling clouds are spread,
|
||
|
||
Eternal sunshine settles on its head."
|
||
|
||
And on the 1st day of January, 1863, the grandest New year
|
||
that ever dawned upon this continent, in accordance with the will
|
||
of the heroic North, by the sublime act of one whose name will be
|
||
sacred through all the coming years, the justice so long delayed
|
||
was accomplished, and four millions of slaves became chainless.
|
||
|
||
LIBERTY TRIUMPHED.
|
||
|
||
Liberty, that most sacred word, without which all other words
|
||
are vain, without which, life is worse than death, and men are
|
||
beasts! I never see the word Liberty without seeing a halo of glory
|
||
around it. It is a word worthy of the lips of a God. Can you
|
||
realize the fact that only a few years ago, the most shocking
|
||
system of slavery -- the most barbarous -- existed in our country,
|
||
and that you and I were bound by the laws of the United States to
|
||
stand between a human being and his liberty? That we were
|
||
absolutely compelled by law to hand back that human being to the
|
||
lash and chain? That by our laws children were sold from the arms
|
||
of mothers, wives sold from their husbands? That we executed our
|
||
laws with the assistance of bloodhounds, owned and trained by human
|
||
bloodhounds fiercer still, and that all this was not only upheld by
|
||
politicians, but by the pretended ministers of Christ? That the
|
||
pulpit was in partnership with the auction block -- that the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
18
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
bloodhound's bark was only an echo from many of the churches? And
|
||
that this was all done under the sacred name of Liberty, by a
|
||
republican government that was founded upon the sublime declaration
|
||
that all men are equal? This all seems to me like a horrible dream,
|
||
a nightmare of terror, a hellish impossibility. And yet, with
|
||
cheeks glowing and burning with shame, before the bar of history,
|
||
we are forced to plead guilty to this terrible charge. We made a
|
||
whipping-post of the cross of Christ. It is true that in a great
|
||
degree we have atoned for this national crime. Our bravest and our
|
||
best have been sacrificed. We have borne the bloody burden of war.
|
||
The good and the true have been with us, and the women of the North
|
||
have won glory imperishable. They robbed war of half its terrors.
|
||
Not content with binding the wreath of victory upon the leader's
|
||
brow, they bandaged the soldiers' wounds, they nerved the living,
|
||
comforted the dying, and smiled upon the great victory through
|
||
their tears.
|
||
|
||
They have consoled the hero's widow and are educating his
|
||
orphans. They have erected a monument to enlightened charity to
|
||
which time can add only grandeur. There is much, however, to be
|
||
accomplished still. Slavery has been abolished, but Progress
|
||
requires more. We are called upon to make this a free government in
|
||
the broadest sense, to give liberty to all. Standing in the
|
||
presence of all history, knowing the experience of mankind, knowing
|
||
that the earth is covered with countless wrecks of cruel failures;
|
||
appealed to by the great army of martyrs and heroes who have gone
|
||
before; by the sacred dust filling innumerable graves; by the
|
||
memory of our own noble dead; by all the suffering of the past; by
|
||
all the hopes for the future; by all the glorious dead and the
|
||
countless millions yet to be. I pray, I beseech, I implore the
|
||
American people to lay the foundation of the Government upon the
|
||
principles of eternal justice. I pray, I beseech, I implore them to
|
||
take for the corner-stone, Universal Human Liberty -- the stone
|
||
which has been heretofore rejected by all the builders of nations.
|
||
The Government will then stand, and the swelling dome of the temple
|
||
will touch the stars.
|
||
|
||
CONCLUSION.
|
||
|
||
I have thus endeavored to show you some of the effects of
|
||
slavery, and to prove to you that a step in order to be in the
|
||
direction of progress must be in the direction of freedom; that
|
||
slavery either of body or mind is barbarism and is practiced and
|
||
defended only by infamous tyrants or their dupes. I have endeavored
|
||
to point out some of the causes of the abolition of slavery, both
|
||
of body and mind. There is one truth, however, that you must not
|
||
forget, and that is, that every evil tends to correct and abolish
|
||
itself. I believe, however, that the diffusion of knowledge, more
|
||
than everything else combined, has ameliorated the condition of
|
||
mankind. When there was no freedom of speech and no press, then
|
||
every idea perished in the brain that gave it birth. One man could
|
||
not profit by the thought of another. The experience of the past
|
||
was in a great degree unknown. And this state of things produced
|
||
the same effect in the mental world, that confining all the water
|
||
to the springs would in the physical. Confine the water to the
|
||
springs, the rivulets would cease to murmur, the rivers to flow,
|
||
and the ocean itself would become a desert of sand. But with the
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
19
|
||
|
||
PROGRESS.
|
||
|
||
invention of printing, ideas began to circulate, born of the busy
|
||
brain of the million -- little rivulets of facts running into
|
||
rivers of information, and they all flowing into the great ocean of
|
||
human knowledge.
|
||
|
||
This exchange of ideas, this comparison of thought, has given
|
||
to each generation the advantage of all the past. This, more than
|
||
all else, has enabled man to improve his condition. It is by this
|
||
that from the log or piece of bark on which a naked savage floated,
|
||
we have by successive improvements created a man-of-war carrying a
|
||
hundred guns and miles of canvas. By these means we have changed a
|
||
handful of sand into a telescope. In the hands of science a drop of
|
||
water has become a giant, turning with swift and tireless arm the
|
||
countless wheels. The sun has become an artist painting with
|
||
shining beams the very thoughts within our eyes. The elements have
|
||
been taught to do our bidding, and the electric spark, freighted
|
||
with human thought and love, defies distance, and devours time as
|
||
it sweeps under all the waves of the sea.
|
||
|
||
These are some of the results of free thought and free labor.
|
||
I have barely alluded to a few -- where is improvement to stop?
|
||
Science is only in its infancy. It has accomplished all this and is
|
||
in its cradle still.
|
||
|
||
We are standing on the shore of an infinite ocean whose
|
||
countless waves, freighted with blessings, are welcoming our
|
||
adventurous feet. Progress has been written on every soul. The
|
||
human race is advancing.
|
||
|
||
Forward, oh sublime army of progress, forward until law is
|
||
justice, forward until ignorance is unknown, forward while there is
|
||
a spiritual or temporal throne, forward until superstition is a
|
||
forgotten dream, forward until the world is free, forward until
|
||
human reason, clothed in the purple of authority, is king of kings.
|
||
|
||
|
||
**** ****
|
||
|
||
|
||
Reproducible Electronic Publishing can defeat censorship.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is a collection of the most thoughtful,
|
||
scholarly and factual books. These computer books are reprints of
|
||
suppressed books and will cover American and world history; the
|
||
Biographies and writings of famous persons, and especially of our
|
||
nations Founding Fathers. They will include philosophy and
|
||
religion. all these subjects, and more, will be made available to
|
||
the public in electronic form, easily copied and distributed, so
|
||
that America can again become what its Founders intended --
|
||
|
||
The Free Market-Place of Ideas.
|
||
|
||
The Bank of Wisdom is always looking for more of these old,
|
||
hidden, suppressed and forgotten books that contain needed facts
|
||
and information for today. If you have such books please contact
|
||
us, we need to give them back to America.
|
||
|
||
|
||
|
||
Bank of Wisdom
|
||
Box 926, Louisville, KY 40201
|
||
20
|
||
|