h iron monsters
ready to blow Christian brains into eternal froth. Millions upon
millions are annually expended in the effort to construct still more
deadly and terrible engines of death. Industry is crippled, honest
toil is robbed, and even beggary is taxed to defray the expenses of
Christian murder. There must be some other way to reform this world.
We have tried creed and dogma, and fable, and they have failed--and
they have failed in all the nations dead.

Nothing but education--scientific education--can benefit mankind. We
must find out the laws of nature and conform to them. We need free
bodies and free minds, free labor and free thought, chainless hands and
fetterless brains. Free labor will give us wealth. Free thought will
give us truth. We need men with moral courage to speak and write their
real thoughts, and to stand by their convictions, even to the very
death. We need have no fear of being too radical. The future will
verify all grand and brave predictions. Paine was splendidly in
advance of his time, but he was orthodox compared to the infidels of
today.

Science, the great iconoclast, has been very busy since 1809, and by
the highway of progress are the broken images of the past. On every
hand the people advance. The vicar of God has been pushed from the
throne of the Caesars, and upon the roofs of the Eternal city falls
once more the shadow of the eagle. All has been accomplished by the
heroic few. The men of science have explored heaven and earth, and
with infinite patience have furnished the facts. The brave thinkers
have aided them. The gloomy caverns of superstition have been
transformed into temples of thought, and the demons of the past are the
angels of today.

Science took a handful of sand, constructed a telescope, and with it
explored the starry depths of heaven. Science wrested from the gods
their thunderbolts; and now, the electric spark freighted with thought
and love, flashes under all the waves of the sea. Science took a tear
from the cheek of unpaid labor, converted it into steam, and created a
giant that turns with tireless arm the countless wheels of toil.

Thomas Paine was one of the intellectual heroes, one of the men to whom
we are indebted. His name is associated forever with the great
republic. He lived a long, laborious, and useful life. The world is
better for his having lived. For the sake of truth he accepted hatred
and reproach for his portion. He at