"No," said some of the apostles of liberty, "as slaves they can never be helped to the fuller and better life. Before everything else, they must conquer freedom to obey not you, but their own unfettered and enlightened consciences. Besides, you have been an evil Master, and can no longer be entrusted with the care of others. With the fall of slavery falls all your pretended rights to the allegiance of these men and women. And the slaves can not become free until your real character is exposed and your pretensions to authority divine exploded." But, on the other hand, there were those among the preachers of freedom who were inclined to accept the slave-owner's proposition: "We will come in and do what we can to educate and reform the people. We will say nothing to them about their slavery, or against your authority over them. All we wish is to make good men and women out of them," they said. Behold the difference between "liberal" Christian and Ethical movements, and a thoroughgoing and uncompromising Rationalism. The former think that the intellectual bondage of the church is not an obstacle to the moral and mental development of man, the latter hold, and to my mind, justly, that the first condition of salvation for a slave is that he be free--free from gods, christs, bibles and churches, as well as kings. But the Rationalist Societies of Europe and America need no justification for their existence. They do a work which neither Unitarianism nor Ethical Culture attempt even to do. The work of the Rationalists of Chicago has been singularly successful, both in building up a self-supporting Society with a large membership and a much larger audience which regularly fills Orchestra Hall--the largest and finest on Michigan Avenue, but it has also, together with the other progressive forces at play in the modern world, profoundly influenced the life and thought of the community. Superstition is more ashamed to show her face in Chicago, than perhaps in any other city of its size in America. There are no doubt, Rationalists in many of our other cities, and in large numbers, but in Chicago, Rationalists are organized. They maintain a regular platform, and disseminate Rationalistic publications by the thousands.