“He that did it would be laughed at as a fool for his presumption. The white man, in his arrogance, sneers at all the rest, and thinks that his complexion is the one above all others. How does he know but what God prefers the ebony black to his white leprous skin?
“The different races uphold their own color, as they should. If then, we cannot determine the type of face or color, how, then, can we fix the type of mind to be preferred? Who shall lay down a law that all men shall think alike, in a certain groove, and in a particular manner, and believe the same things in the same way, as one man or a set of men, in their assumed superiority, think the best! Why should you, or any class of men, dictate to me how I shall think about God, or in fact about anything, any more than you or they should tell me how to have my hair cut, or to select a certain pattern for my clothes?
“I go into your garden, and may make suggestions about your walks, or your flowers, and you may act upon them or not, but what right have I to insist and command you to do according to my views with your own property? What right, then, have I to step into your mind, and tell you to think as I do, and believe what I tell you, or be damned? When men cannot make two faces alike, how can they expect to fashion the minds of men to one pattern? This has been attempted in all ages, and mainly by the Church, and what was the result? Persecution, imprisonment, crucifixion, burning at the stake, pouring molten lead into the ears, bursting people with water poured into their mouths, tearing them limb from limb, in short, no tortures that devilish ingenuity could invent but were inflicted, and the wars, desolating countries, the destruction of cities, the outrage and murder of helpless women and children, fire and the sword, the fiendish passions of men unrestrained, a greater destruction of property and human life by the Christian religious wars, than in all the wars of the world put together, and for what purpose? To make men think alike. Did they succeed? Not at all. Mankind will think as it pleases, fire or no fire, and in spite of the direst persecution. The attempt was so absurd and outrageous that any one, half mad or an idiot, ought to have seen the folly of it. The scientists might, with as much reason, call a convocation and pass a resolution that after a certain date all mankind should be of a certain height, and of a particular color. Yet, notwithstanding the horrible failure, the same old spirit exists, and the dungeon, the rack, fire and sword would come into use again for the same old hellish purpose if it were possible.
“This is the era of another method, until in the revolution of time, the old system may again appear, as the affairs of men have their cycles and their seasons, as the spheres and all things in nature. In ancient times the religious believed in knocking unbelief on the head with battle axes. Now it is the use of offensive epithets, caricature, sarcasm, virulent attacks, denunciation, differing from the former methods, but with the same old spirit and the same purpose in view.
“Yet, to be candid and reasonable, I am glad to admit that there has been great improvement. There is now a wide liberty and more generosity, simply because the world has grown wiser by experience, and the number of free thinkers, those people who think as they choose, have increased, and can show that they also have rights which the others are compelled to respect.
“One thing I cannot abide. It is that any man, or set of men, should organize a church, patch up a creed, formulate some ordinances and make claims that they are right and all others are wrong. They have divine authority, they say, and so say they all, each batch of them.
“But who are they? Men, all, every one of them, and all of them very fallible men, too. Can any one set of them have any superiority or right over all other men?
“If Peter, who denied his master, and cursed, and a very fallible man he was, could found a church, why not each of the other apostles, or why not anybody, for that matter? If a Roman Church, why not an English Church, an American, an African, a Chinese, a Hottentot Church? No one could assert that the African Church might not be as acceptable to God as the African face, and there might be as much difference between these churches as in the color of the different peoples. So many get up schemes to assist Providence, as if He was incapable of conducting His own affairs.
“Suppose a being from another world, or not to go so far, say a heathen, should begin the study of the different beliefs of the different churches and at the same time study the actions of those who profess belief in them. What would be his inevitable conclusion?
“That Jesus was the Prince of Peace? And that all the people of these different creeds are his true followers?