During those infamous years--years of cruelty and national degradation--years of hypocrisy and greed and meanness beneath the reach of any English word, Elizur Wright became acquainted with the orthodox church. He found that a majority of Christians were willing to enslave men and women for whom they said that Christ had died--that they would steal the babe of a Christian mother, although they believed that the mother would be their equal in heaven forever. He found that those who loved their enemies would enslave their friends--that people who when smitten on one cheek turned the other, were ready, willing and anxious to mob and murder those who simply said: "The laborer is worthy of his hire." In those days the church was in favor of slavery, not only of the body but of the mind. According to the creeds, God himself was an infinite master and all his children serfs. He ruled with whip and chain, with pestilence and fire. Devils were his bloodhounds, and hell his place of eternal torture. Elizur Wright said to himself, why should we take chains from bodies and enslave minds--why fight to free the cage and leave the bird a prisoner? He became an enemy of orthodox religion--that is to say, a friend of intellectual liberty. He lived to see the destruction of legalized larceny; to read the Proclamation of Emancipation; to see a country without a slave, a flag without a stain. He lived long enough to reap the reward for having been an honest man; long enough for his "disgrace" to become a crown of glory; long enough to see his views adopted and his course applauded by the civilized world; long enough for the hated word "abolitionist" to become a title of nobility, a certificate of manhood, courage and true patriotism. Only a few years ago, the heretic was regarded as an enemy of the human race. The man who denied the inspiration of the Jewish Scriptures was looked upon as a moral leper, and the Atheist as the worst of criminals. Even in that day, Elizur Wright was grand enough to speak his honest thought, to deny the inspiration of the Bible; brave enough to defy the God of the orthodox church--the Jehovah of the Old Testament, the Eternal Jailer, the Everlasting Inquisitor. He contended that a good God would not have upheld slavery and polygamy; that a loving Father would not assist some of his children to enslave or exterminate their brethren; that an infinite being would not be unjust, irritable, jealous, revengeful, ignorant, and cruel. And it was his great good fortune to live long enough to find the intellectual world on his side; long enough to know that the greatest' naturalists, philosophers, and scientists agreed with him; long enough to see certain words change places, so that "heretic" was honorable and "orthodox" an epithet. To-day, the heretic is known to be a man of principle and courage--one blest with enough mental independence to tell his thought. To-day, the thoroughly orthodox means the thoroughly stupid.