the glory that was Rome."

And there is a good and valid reason for this.

It was because "in 1776 our fathers retired the gods from politics." The
basic principle of the American Republic is the freedom of man in
society.

The Declaration of Independence was the product of Intellectual
Emancipation, and that is why, from thenceforth, our date of existence
should be recorded, not from the mythical birth of Jesus Christ, but
from the day of our Independence!

This should be the year one hundred and seventy-eight in our calendar!

Despite discouraging signs here and there, the seeds of freedom planted
by the American Revolution will take root, and throughout the world, if
man will learn to zealously guard his freedom, Peace and Progress will
come to all the world.

Could there be a more significant illustration than this:

Practically in our own lifetime, and certainly since the Declaration of
Independence, man has wrought the most amazing achievements in the field
of science and progress ever recorded in human history.

Not in their order, nor according to their significance, do I record the
following:

Anesthesia was discovered.

Do you know what it means to relieve man of his pain and suffering?
Anesthesia is the most humane of all of man's accomplishments, and what
a merciful accomplishment it was.

For this great discovery we are indebted to Dr. W. T. G. Morton.

Do you know that the religionists opposed the use of anesthesia on the
ground that God sent pain as a punishment for sin, and it was considered
the greatest of sacrileges to use it--just think of it, a sin to relieve
man of his misery! What a monstrous perversion! This one instance alone
should convince you of the difference in believing in God or not.

No believer in God would have spent his energies to discover anesthesia.
He would have been in mortal fear of the wrath of his God for
interfering with his "divine plan," of making man suffer for having
eaten of the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge."

The very crux of the matter is in this one instance.

Man seeks to relieve his fellow man from the suffering of disease and
the pangs of mental agony. The believers in God are content that man's
suffering is ordained, and therefore he accepts life and its trials and
tribulations as a penance for living.

The fear of the wrath of God has been a stumbling block to progress.

When Dr. James Young Simpson sought to apply anesthesia to a woman in