this country he could not safely walk the streets for
fear of being mobbed. Under the Constitution he had suggested, his
rights were not safe; under the flag that he had helped give to heaven,
with which he had enriched the air, his liberty was not safe. Is it
not a disgrace to us that all the lies that have been told about him,
and will be told about him, are a perpetual disgrace? I tell you that
upon the grave of Thomas Paine the churches of America have sacrificed
their reputation for veracity. Who can hate a man with a creed:

"I believe in one God and no more, and I hope for immortality; I
believe in the equality of man, and that religious duty consists in
doing justice, in doing mercy, and in endeavoring to make our
fellow-creatures happy. It is necessary to the happiness of man that he
be faithful to himself. One good schoolmaster is worth a thousand
priests. Man has no property in man, and the key of heaven is in the
keeping of no saint."

Grand, splendid, brave man!--with some faults, with many virtues; the
world is better because he lived; and if Thomas Paine had not lived I
could not have delivered this lecture here tonight.

Did all the priests of Rome increase the mental wealth of man as much
as Bruno? Did all the priests of France do as great a work for the
civilization of this world as Diderot and Voltaire? Did all the
ministers of Scotland add as much to the sum of human knowledge as
David Hume? Have all the clergymen, monks, friars, ministers, priests,
bishops, cardinals and popes from the day of Pentecost to the last
election done as much for human liberty as Thomas Paine? What would
the world be now if infidels had never been? Infidels have been the
flower of all this world. Recollect, by infidels I mean every man who
has made an intellectual advance. By orthodox I mean a gentleman who is
petrified in his mind, whopping around intellectually, simply to save
the funeral expenses of his soul. Infidels are the creditors of all the
years to come. They have made this world fit to live in, and without
them the human brain would be as empty as the Chronicles soon will be.
Unless they preach something that the people want to hear, it is not a
crime to benefit our fellow-man intellectually. The churches point to
their decayed saints and their crumbled popes and say, "Do you know
more than all the ministers that ever lived?" And, without the
slightest egotism or blush, I say, "Yes; and the name