, and his
demonstrations, each one of them, is a Gibraltar, behind which logic
sits laughing at all the sophistries of theological thought. In every
relation of life he was just, true, gentle, patient, loving,
affectionate. He died in 1812. In his life of forty-four years he had
climbed to the very highest alpine of human thought. He was a great
and splendid man, an intellectual hero, one of the benefactors, one of
the Titans of our race.

And now I will say a few words about our infidels. We had three, to
say the least of them--Paine, Franklin and Jefferson. In their day the
colonies were filled with superstition, and the Puritans with the
spirit of persecution. Law, savage, ignorant and malignant, had been
passed in every colony for the purpose of destroying intellectual
liberty. Manly freedom was unknown. The toleration act of Maryland
tolerated only chickens, not thinkers, not investigators. It tolerated
faith, not brains. The charity of Roger Williams was not extended to
one who denied the bible. Let me show you how we have advanced.
Suppose you took every man and woman out of the Penitentiary in New
England and shipped them to a new country where man before had never
trod, and told them to make a government, and constitution, and a code
of laws for themselves. I say tonight that they would make a better
constitution and a better code of laws than any that were made in any
of the original thirteen colonies of the United States.

Not that they are better men, not that they are more honest, but that
they have got more sense. They have been touched with the dawn of the
eternal day of liberty that will finally come to this world. They
would have more respect for others' rights than they had at that time.
But the churches were jealous of each other, and we got a constitution
without religion in it from the mutual jealousies of the church, and
from the genius of men like Paine, Franklin and Jefferson. We are
indebted to them for a constitution without a God in it. They knew
that if you put God in there, an infinite God, there wouldn't be any
room for the people. Our fathers retired Jehovah from politics. Our
fathers, under the directions and leadership of those infidels, said,
"All power comes from the consent of the governed." George Washington
wanted to establish a church by law in Virginia. Thomas Jefferson
prevented it. Under the guaranty of liberty of conscience which was
given, our legislation