that I never would have been there only I got scared. When we are
frightened we do not think very well. If you want to get at the honest
thoughts of a man he must be free. If he is not free you will not get
his honest thought. You won't trade with a merchant, if he is free; you
won't employ him if he is a lawyer, if he is free; you won't call him
if he is a doctor, if he is free; and what are you going to get out of
him but hypocrisy. Force will not make thinkers, but hypocrites. A
minister told me awhile ago, "Ingersoll," he says, "if you do not
believe the bible you ought not to say so." Says I, "Do you believe
the bible?" He says, "I do." I says, "I don't know whether you do or
not; maybe you are following the advice you gave me; how shall I know
whether you believe it or not?" Now, I shall die without knowing
whether that man believed the bible or not. There is no way that I can
possibly find out, because he said that even if he did not believe it
he would not say so. Now, I read, for instance, a book. Now, let us
be honest. Suppose that a clergyman and I were on an island--nobody
but us two--and I were to read a book, and I honestly believed it
untrue, and he asked me about it--what ought I to say? Ought I to say
I believed it, and be lying, or ought I to say I did not?--that is the
question; and the church can take its choice between honest men, who
differ, and hypocrites, who differ, but say they do not--you can have
your choice, all of you.*

[* "These black-coats are the only persons of my acquaintance who
resemble the chameleon, in being able to keep one eye directed upwards
to heaven, and the other downwards to the good things of this
world."--Alex. von Humboldt]

If you give to us liberty, you will have in this country a splendid
diversity of individuality; but if on the contrary you say men shall
think so and so, you will have the sameness of stupid nonsense. In my
judgment, it is the duty of every man to think and express his
thoughts; but at the same time do not make martyrs of yourselves.

Those people that are not willing you should be honest, are not worth
dying for; they are not worth being a martyr for; and if you are afraid
you cannot support your wife and children in this town and express your
honest thought, why keep it to yourself, but if there is such a man
here he is a living certificate of the meanness of the community in
which he lives. Go right along, if you are afraid it wi