Is there any such thing as Methodist mathematics,
Presbyterian botany, Catholic astronomy or Baptist biology? What has
any form of superstition or religion to do with a fact or with any
science? Nothing but to hinder, delay or embarrass. I want, then, to
free the schools; and I want to free the politicians, so that a man
will not have to pretend he is a Methodist, or his wife a Baptist, or
his grandmother a Catholic; so that he can go through a campaign, and
when he gets through will find none of the dust of hypocrisy on his
knees.

I want the people splendid enough that when they desire men to make
laws for them, they will take one who knows something, who has brains
enough to prophesy the destiny of the American Republic, no matter what
his opinions may be upon any religious subject. Suppose we are in a
storm out at sea, and the billows are washing over our ship, and it is
necessary that some one should reef the topsail, and a man presents
himself. Would you stop him at the foot of the mast to find out his
opinion on the five points of Calvinism? What has that to do with it?
Congress has nothing to do with baptism or any particular creed, and
from what little experience I have had in Washington, very little to do
with any kind of religion whatever. Now I hope, this afternoon, this
magnificent and splendid audience will forget that they are Baptists or
Methodists, and remember that they are men and women. These are the
highest titles humanity can bear--and every title you add, belittles
them. Man is the highest; woman is the highest. Let us remember that
our views depend largely upon the country in which we happen to live.
Suppose we were born in Turkey most of us would have been Mohammedans;
and when we read in the book that when Mohammed visited heaven he
became acquainted with an angel named Gabriel, who was so broad between
his eyes that it would take a smart camel three hundred days to make
the journey, we probably would have believed it. If we did not, people
would say: "That young man is dangerous; he is trying to tear down the
fabric of our religion. What do you propose to give us instead of that
angel? We cannot afford to trade off an angel of that size for
nothing." Or if we had been born in India, we would have believed in a
god with three heads. Now we believe in three gods with one head. And
so we might make a tour of the world and see that every superstition
that could be imagined by the bra