Do you know we are improving all the time? Do you know that the most orthodox people in this town today, three hundred years ago would have been burned for heresy? Do you know some ministers who denounce me would have been in the Inquisition themselves two hundred years ago? Do you know where once burned and blazed the bivouac fires of the army of progress, the altars of the church glow today? Do you know that the church today occupies about the same ground that unbelievers did one hundred years ago? Do you know that while they have followed this army of progress, protesting and denouncing, they have had to keep within protesting and denouncing distance, but they have followed it? They have been the men, let me say, in the valley; the men in swamps, shouting to and cursing the pioneers on the hills; the men upon whose forehead was the light of the coming dawn, the coming day—but they have advanced. In spite of themselves, they have advanced! If they had not, I would not speak here to night. If they had not, not a solitary one of you could have expressed your real and honest thought. But we are advancing, and we are beginning to hold all kinds of slavery in utter contempt; do you know that? And we are beginning to question wealth and power; we are questioning all creeds and all dogmas; and we are not bowing down, as we used to, to a man simply because he is in the robe of a clergyman, and we are not bowing down to a man now simply because he is a king. No! We are not bowing down simply because he is rich. We used to worship the golden calves, but we do not now. The worst you can say of an American, is, he worships the gold of the calf, not the calf; and even the calves are beginning to see this distinction.
It no longer fills the ambition of a man to be emperor or king. The last Napoleon was not satisfied with being Emperor of the French; he was not satisfied with having a circlet of gold about his head; he wanted some evidence that he had something within his head, so he wrote the life of Julius Caesar, that he might become a member of the French Academy. Compare, for instance, in the German Empire, King William and Bismarck. King William is the one anointed of the most high, as they claim—the one upon whose head has been poured the divine petroleum of authority. Compare him with Bismarck, who towers, an intellectual Colossus, above this man. Go into England and compare George Eliot with Queen Victoria—Queen Victoria, clothed in the garments given to her by blind fortune and by chance. George Elliot, robed in garments of glory, woven in the loom of her own genius. Which does the world pay respect to? I tell you we are advancing! The pulpit does not do all the thinking; the pews do it; nearly all of it. The world is advancing, and we question the authority of those men who simply say "it is so." Down upon your knees and admit it! When I think of how much this world has suffered, I am amazed. When I think of how long our fathers were slaves, I am amazed. Why, just think of it! This world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty years. No, it has not. It was not until the year 1808 that Great Britain abolished the slave trade. Up to that time her judge, sitting upon the bench in the name of justice; her priests, occupying the pulpit in the name of universal love, owned stock in slave ships and luxuriated in the profits of piracy and murder. It was not until the year 1808 that the United States abolished the slave trade between this and other countries, but preserved it as between the States. It was not until the 28th day of August, 1833, that Great Britain abolished human slavery in her colonies; and it was not until the 1st day of January, 1863, that Abraham Lincoln wiped from our flag the stigma of disgrace. Abraham Lincoln—in my judgment, the grandest man ever president of the United States, and upon whose monument these words could truthfully be written: "Here lies the only man in the history of the world who, having been clothed with almost absolute power, never abused it except on the side of mercy."
Think, I say, how long we clung to the institution of human slavery; how long lashes upon the naked back were the legal tender for labor performed! Think of it! when the pulpit of this country deliberately and willfully changed the Cross of Christ into the whipping-post. Think of it! And tell me then if I am right when I say this world has only been fit for a gentleman to live in fifty years. I hate with every drop of my blood every form of tyranny. I hate every form of slavery. I hate dictation—I want something like liberty; and what do I mean by that? The right to do anything that does not interfere with the happiness of another, physically. Liberty of thought includes the right to think right and the right to think wrong. Why? Because that is the means by which we arrive at truth; for if we knew the truth before, we needn't think. Those men who mistake their ignorance for facts, never do think. You may say to me, "How far is it across this room?" I say 100 feet. Suppose it is 105; have I committed any crime? I made the best guess I could. You ask me about any thing; I examine it honestly, and when I get through, what should I tell you—what I think or what you think? What should I do?
There is a book put in my hands. They say "That is the Koran; that was written by inspiration; read it." I read it. Chapter VII, entitled "The Cow," chapter IX, entitled "The Bee," and so on. I read it. When I get through with it, suppose I think in my heart and in my brain, "I don't believe a word of it;" and you ask me, "What do you think of it?" Now, admitting that I live in Turkey, and have a chance to get an office, what should I say? Now, honor bright, should I just make a clean breast of it and say "Upon my honor, I don't believe it?" Then is it right for you to say "That fellow will steal—that fellow is a dangerous man—he is a robber?" Now, suppose I read the book called the bible (and I read it, honor bright), and when I get through with it I make up my mind that book was written by men; and along comes the preacher of my church, and he says "Did you read that book?" "I did." "Do you think it is divinely inspired?" I say to myself, "Now if I say it is not, they will never send me to Congress from this district on earth." Now, honor bright, what ought I to do? Ought I to say, "I have read it. I have been honest about it; don't believe it?" Now, ought I to say that, if that is a real transcript of my mind, or ought I to commence hemming and hawing and pretend that I do believe it, and go away with the respect of that man, hating myself for a cringing coward? Now which? For my part I would rather a man would tell me what he honestly thinks, and he will preserve his manhood. I had rather be a manly unbeliever than an unmanly believer. I think I will stand higher at the judgment day, if there is one, and stand with as good a chance to get my case dismissed without costs as a man who sneaks through life pretending he believes what he does not. I tell you one thing; there is going to be one free fellow in this world. I am going to say my say, I tell you. I am going to do it kindly, I am going to do it distinctly, but I am going to do it.
Now, if men have been slaves, what about women? Women have been the slaves of slaves; and that's a pretty hard position to occupy for life. They have been the slaves of slaves; and in my judgment it took millions of ages for women to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the institution of marriage. Let me say right here, tonight, I regard marriage as the holiest institution among men. Without the fireside there is no human advancement; without the family relation, there is no life worth living. Every good government is made up of good families. The unit of government is family, and anything that tends to destroy the family is perfectly devilish and infamous. I believe in marriage, and I hold in utter contempt the opinions of long-haired men and short-haired women who denounce the institution of marriage. Let me say right here—and I have thought a good deal about it—let me say right here, the grandest ambition that any man can possibly have is to so live and so improve himself in heart and brain as to be worthy of the love of some splendid woman; and the grandest ambition of any girl is to make herself worthy of the love and adoration of some magnificent man. That is my idea, and there is no success in life without it. If you are the grand emperor of the world, you had better be the grand emperor of one loving and tender heart, and she the grand empress of yours. The man who has really won the love of one good woman in this world, I do not care if he dies in the ditch a beggar, his life has been a success.
I say it took millions of years to come from the condition of abject slavery up to the condition of marriage. Ladies, the ornaments you bear upon your person tonight are but the souvenirs of your mothers' bondage. The chains around your necks and the bracelets clasped upon your wrists by the thrilling hand of love, have been changed by the wand of civilization from iron to shining, glittering gold. But nearly every religion