Ministers ought to be free. They should be the heralds of the ever coming day, but they are the bats, the owls that inhabit ruins, that hate the light. They denounce honest men who express their thoughts, as blasphemers, and do what they can to close their mouths. For their Bible they ask the protection of law. They wish to be shielded from laughter by the Legislature. They ask that the arguments of their opponents be answered by the courts. This is the result of a due admixture of cowardice, hypocrisy and malice. What valuable fact has been proclaimed from an orthodox pulpit? What ecclesiastical council has added to the intellectual wealth of the world? Many centuries ago the church gave to Christendom a code of laws, stupid, unphilosophic and brutal to the last degree. The church insists that it has made man merciful and just. Did it do this by torturing heretics--by extinguishing their eyes--by flaying them alive? Did it accomplish this result through the Inquisition--by the use of the thumb-screw, the rack and the fagot? Of what science has the church been the friend and champion? What orthodox church has opened its doors to a persecuted truth? Of what use has Christianity been to man? They tell us that the church has been and is the friend of education. I deny it. The church founded colleges not to educate men, but to make proselytes, converts, defenders. This was in accordance with the instinct of self-preservation. No orthodox church ever was, or ever will be in favor of real education. A Catholic is in favor of enough education to make a Catholic out of a savage, and the Protestant is in favor of enough education to make a Protestant out of a Catholic, but both are opposed to the education that makes free and manly men. So, ministers say that they teach charity. This is natural. They live on alms. All beggars teach that others should give. So, they tell us that the church has built hospitals. This is not true. Men have not built hospitals because they were Christians, but because they were men. They have not built them for charity--but in self-defence. If a man comes to your door with the smallpox, you cannot let him in, you cannot kill him. As a necessity, you provide a place for him. And you do this to protect yourself. With this Christianity has had nothing to do. The church cannot give, because it does not produce. It is claimed that the church has made men and women forgiving. I admit that the church has preached forgiveness, but it has never forgiven an enemy--never. Against the great and brave thinkers it has coined and circulated countless lies. Never has the church told, or tried to tell, the truth about an honest foe.