ld by the church that we have accomplished
nothing; that we are simply destroyers; that we tear down without
building again.

Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is
it nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science?
Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect. Is it nothing to
grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons,
the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men are
chained to floors of stone; to greet them like a ray of light, like the
song of a bird, the murmur of a stream, to see the dull eyes open and
grow slowly bright; to feel yourself grasped by the shrunken and unused
hands, and hear yourself thanked by a strange and hollow voice? Is it
nothing to conduct these souls gradually into the blessed light of
day--to let them see again the happy fields, the sweet, green earth,
and hear the everlasting music of the waves? Is it nothing to make men
wipe the dust from their swollen knees, the tears from their blanched
and furrowed cheeks? Is it a small thing to reave the heavens of an
insatiate monster and write upon the eternal dome, glittering with
stars, the grand word liberty? Is it a small thing to quench the
thirst of hell with the holy tears of piety, break all the chains, put
out the fires of civil war, stay the sword of the fanatic, and tear the
bloody hands of the church from the white throat of progress? Is it a
small thing to make men truly free, to destroy the dogmas of ignorance,
prejudice, and power, the poisoned fables of superstition, and drive
from the beautiful face of the earth the fiend of fear?

It does seem as though the most zealous Christians must at times
entertain some doubt as to the divine origin of his religion. For
eighteen hundred years the doctrine has been preached. For more than a
thousand years the church had, to a great extent, the control of the
civilized world, and what has been the result? Are the Christian
nations patterns of charity and forbearance? On the contrary, their
principal business is to destroy each other. More than five millions
of Christians are trained and educated and drilled to murder their
fellow-Christians. Every nation is groaning under a vast debt incurred
in carrying on war against other Christians, or defending itself from
Christian assault. The world is covered with forts to protect
Christians from Christians, and every sea is covered wit