t to do so, and I will tell you the reason they gave:
They said if they were not cut out that while they were being burned,
they might, by their heresies, scandalize the gentleman who would bring
the wood; they were too good to hear these things and they might be
injured; and the same idea appears to prevail in this world now that
they are too good and they must not be shocked.

They say to us: "You must not shock us, and when you say there is no
hell we are shocked. You must not say that." When I go to church and
they tell me there is a hell I must not get shocked; and if they tell
me that there is not only a hell, but that I am going to it, I must not
be shocked. Even if they take the next step and act as though they
would be glad to see me there, still I must not be shocked. I will
agree to keep from being shocked as long as anybody in the world--they
can say what they please; I will not get shocked, but let me say it.
You send missionaries to Turkey and tell them that the Koran is a lie.
You shock them. You tell them that Mahomet was not a prophet. You
shock them. It is too bad to shock them. You go to India and you tell
them that Vishnu was nothing, Puranas was nothing, that Buddha was
nobody, and your Brahma, he is nothing. Why do you shock these people?
You should not do that; you ought not to hurt their feelings. I tell
you no man on earth has a right to be shocked at the expression of an
honest opinion when it is kindly done, and I don't believe there is any
God in the universe who has put a curtain over the fact and made it a
crime for the honest hand of investigation to endeavor to draw that
curtain.

This world has not been fit to live in fifty years. There is no
liberty in it--very little. Why, it is only a few years ago that all
the Christian nations were engaged in the slave trade. It was not until
1808, that England abolished the slave trade, and up to that time her
priests in her churches, and her judges on her benches, owned stock in
slave ships, and luxuriated on the profits of piracy and murder; and
when a man stood up and denounced it, they mobbed him as though he had
been a common burglar or a horse thief. Think of it! It was not until
the 28th day of August, 1833, that England abolished slavery in her
colonies; and it was not until the first day of January, 1863, that
Abraham Lincoln, by direction of the entire North, wiped that infamy
out of this country; and I never speak of Abraha