Let us suppose we were walking through one of the church-yards of this city with another person, and the discourse fell upon the resurrection. If you said it was impossible for any authority to prove it, and the person said, I know there can be a resurrection of the dead, and I will give you a proof of it; and suppose he bade the dead rise, and they sprang alive out of the earth; do you mean to say that would be no authority from him on the question of the resurrection of the dead? Would it be a tyranny over Freethought to be told that the dead can rise? So you see Freethought is not inconsistent with the authority of a revelation, for this reason, that the revelation submits its proof to your Freethought. I am not saying that I have proved the miracles, I am only saying that by miracles we are not violating Freethought; but on the contrary we are maintaining it. I speak as unto wise men, judge ye what I say. I now come to the third idea of freedom, that is, freedom as opposed to responsibility; and this is, I really believe, what men mean when they speak of Freethought as opposed to Christianity. They say, “You threaten us with penalties for unbelief, and our whole soul revolts against that. It would be tyrannical to punish a man for his opinions. We cannot endure men to do this. Do you mean to say that God will be less just than man and persecute us for our opinions?” Let us see whether we clearly understand this question. This objection goes to the principle that no man should be punished for his opinions. I will ask you to consider this question. Is it true that no man under any circumstances should be punished for his opinions? And again is it true that men do not suffer for their opinions? It is true that so long as he keeps his thoughts to himself, he will not be punished for them, for the simple reason that they are not known; but when he utters them, he may be punished. Is it not true, that a man who utters a seditious, a libellous, or indecent thought is punished and should be punished? And why? because the law of liberty of the individual comes into collision with the higher law of the general welfare, and must give way to it. There are other penalties; society punishes a man more sharply than the law. There are offences of thought and speech which the law does not and should not punish, and yet which society visits very heavily. Let a man entertain evil and unkind thoughts of his neighbour, and show it by his looks, and we know how society visits him for his Freethought. Every man knows that if all the thoughts of his heart were laid bare, before his fellow men, he might pass a miserable and outcast existence, because society defends itself against this injurious exercise of Freethought.