The "spiritual people" in each country claimed that their books had been written by inspired men--that God was the real author, and that all men and women who denied this would be, after death, tormented forever. And yet, the worldly people, the uninspired, the wicked, have produced a far greater literature than the spiritual and the inspired. Not all the sacred books of the world equal Shakespeare's "volume of the brain." A purer philosophy, grander, nobler, fell from the lips of Shakespeare's clowns than the Old Testament, or the New, contains. The Declaration of Independence is nobler far than all the utterances from Sinai's cloud and flame. "A Man's a Man for a' That," by Robert Burns, is better than anything the sacred books contain. For my part, I would rather hear Beethoven's Sixth Symphony than to read the five books of Moses. Give me the Sixth Symphony--this sound-wrought picture of the fields and woods, of flowering hedge and happy home, where thrushes build and swallows fly, and mothers sing to babes; this echo of the babbled lullaby of brooks that, dallying, wind and fall where meadows bare their daisied bosoms to the sun; this joyous mimicry of summer rain, the laugh of children, and the rhythmic rustle of the whispering leaves; this strophe of peasant life; this perfect poem of content and love. I would rather listen to Tristan and Isolde--that Mississippi of melody--where the great notes, winged like eagles, lift the soul above the cares and griefs of this weary world--than to all the orthodox sermons ever preached. I would rather look at the Venus de Milo than to read the Presbyterian creed. The spiritual have endeavored to civilize the world through fear and faith--by the promise of reward and the threat of pain in other worlds. They taught men to hate and persecute their fellow-men. In all ages they have appealed to force. During all the years they have practiced fraud. They have pretended to have influence with the gods--that their prayers gave rain, sunshine and harvest--that their curses brought pestilence and famine, and that their blessings filled the world with plenty. They have subsisted on the fears their falsehoods created. Like poisonous vines, they have lived on the oak of labor. They have praised charity, but they never gave. They have denounced revenge, but they never forgave. Whenever the spiritual have had power, art has died, learning has languished, science has been despised, liberty destroyed, the thinkers have been imprisoned, the intelligent and honest have been outcasts, and the brave have been murdered. The "spiritual" have been, are, and always will be the enemies of the human race.