Dedication to Ebon C. Ingersoll--Preface--Mendacity of the Religious Press--"Materialism"--Ways of Pleasing the Ghosts--The Idea of Immortality not Born of any Book--Witchcraft and Demon-ology--Witch Trial before Sir Matthew Hale--John Wesley a Firm Believer in Ghosts--"Witch-spots"--Lycanthropy--Animals Tried and Convicted--The Governor of Minnesota and the Grasshoppers--A Papal Bull against Witchcraft--Victims of the Delusion--Sir William Blackstone's Affirmation--Trials in Belgium--Incubi and Succubi--A Bishop Personated by the Devil--The Doctrine that Diseases are caused by Ghosts--Treatment--Timothy Dwight against Vaccination--Ghosts as Historians--The Language of Eden--Leibnitz, Founder of the Science of Language--Cosmas on Astronomy--Vagaries of Kepler and Tycho Brahe--Discovery of Printing, Powder, and America--Thanks to the Inventors--The Catholic Murderer and the Meat--Let the Ghosts Go THE LIBERTY OF MAN, WOMAN, AND CHILD. (1877.) Liberty sustains the same Relation to Mind that Space does to Matter--The History of Man a History of Slavery--The Infidel Our Fathers in the good old Time--The iron Arguments that Christians Used--Instruments of Torture--A Vision of the Inquisition--Models of Man's Inventions--Weapons, Armor, Musical Instruments, Paintings, Books, Skulls--The Gentleman in the Dug-out--Homage to Genius and Intellect--Abraham Lincoln--What I mean by Liberty--The Man who cannot afford to Speak his Thought is a Certificate of the Meanness of the Community in which he Resides--Liberty of Woman--Marriage and the Family--Ornaments the Souvenirs of Bondage-The Story of the Garden of Eden--Adami and Heva--Equality of the Sexes-The word "Boss"--The Cross Man-The Stingy Man--Wives who are Beggars--How to Spend Money--By the Tomb of the Old Napoleon--The Woman you Love will never Grow Old--Liberty of Children--When your Child tells a Lie--Disowning Children--Beating your own Flesh and Blood--Make Home Pleasant--Sunday when I was a Boy--The Laugh of a Child--The doctrine of Eternal Punishment--Jonathan Edwards on the Happiness of Believing Husbands whose Wives are in Hell--The Liberty of Eating and Sleeping--Water in Fever--Soil and Climate necessary to the production of Genius--Against Annexing Santo Domingo--Descent of Man--Conclusion ABOUT FARMING IN ILLINOIS. (1877.) To Plow is to Pray; to Plant is to Prophesy, and the Harvest Answers and Fulfills--The Old Way of Farming--Cooking an Unknown Art-Houses, Fuel, and Crops--The Farmer's Boy--What a Farmer should Sell--Beautifying the Home--Advantages of Illinois as a Farming State--Advantages of the Farmer over the Mechanic--Farm Life too Lonely-On Early Rising--Sleep the Best Doctor--Fashion--Patriotism and Boarding Houses--The Farmer and the Railroads--Money and Confidence--Demonetization of Silver-Area of Illinois--Mortgages and Interest--Kindness to Wives and Children--How a Beefsteak should be Cooked--Decorations and Comfort--Let the Children Sleep--Old Age