I know I have some advantages above most clergymen: I am responsible to no sect; no sect feels responsible for me; I have rejoiced at good things which I have seen in all sects; the doctrines which I try to teach do not rest on tradition, on miracles, or on any man's authority; only on the nature of man. I seek to preach the natural laws of man. I appeal to history for illustration, not for authority. I have no fear of philosophy. I am willing to look a doubt fairly in the face, and think reason is sacred as conscience, affection, or the religious faculty in man. I see a profound piety in modern science. I have aimed to set forth absolute religion, the ideal religion of human nature, free piety, free goodness, free thought. I call that Christianity, after the greatest man of the world, one who himself taught it; but I know that this was never the Christianity of the churches, in any age. I have endeavored to teach this religion and apply it to the needs of this time. These things certainly give me some advantages over most other ministers. Of the disadvantages which are personal to myself, I need not speak in public, but some which come from my position, ought to be noticed with a word. The walls of this house, the associations connected with it, furnish little help to devotion; we must rely on ourselves wholly for that. Other clergymen, by their occasional exchanges, can present their hearers with an agreeable variety in substance and in form. A single man, often heard, becomes wearisome and unprofitable, for "No man can feed us always." This I feel to be a great disadvantage which I labor under. Your kindness and affectionate indulgence make me feel it all the more. But one man cannot be twenty men.