s--they feel that, to a
certain extent, they have been enslaved and robbed. If they want
liberty, they should be willing to give liberty to others. Certainly
one of their members has the same right to his opinion with regard
to the existence of a God, that the other members have to theirs.

I do not blame this man for doubting the existence of a Supreme
Being, provided he understands the history of liberty. When a man
takes into consideration the fact that for many thousands of years
labor was unpaid, nearly all of it being done by slaves, and that
millions and hundreds of millions of human beings were bought and
sold the same as cattle, and that during all that time the religions
of the world upheld the practice, and the priests of the countless
unknown gods insisted that the institution of slavery was divine--
I do not wonder that he comes to the conclusion that, perhaps,
after all, there is no Supreme Being--at least none who pays any
particular attention to the affairs of this world.

If one will read the history of the slave-trade, of the cruelties
practiced, of the lives sacrificed, of the tortures inflicted, he
will at least wonder why "a God of infinite goodness and wisdom"
did not interfere just a little; or, at least, why he did not deny
that he was in favor of the trade. Here, in our own country,
millions of men were enslaved, and hundreds and thousands of
ministers stood up in their pulpits, with their Bibles in front of
them, and proceeded to show that slavery was about the only
institution that they were absolutely certain was divine. And they
proved it by reading passages from this very Bible that the Knights
of Labor in Indiana are anxious to have read in their meetings.
For their benefit, let me call their attention to a few passages,
and suggest that, hereafter, they read those passages at every
meeting, for the purpose of convincing all the Knights that the
Lord is on the side of those who work for a living:--

"Both thy bondsmen and thy bondsmaids which thou shalt have, shall
be of the heathen round about you; of them shall ye buy bondsmen
and bondmaids.

"Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among
you, of them shall ye buy, and of their families which are with
you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your
possession.

"And ye shall take them as an inheritance, for your children after
you to inherit them for a possession. They shall be your bondsmen
fo