Had I said, that there is no God, still I should not deserve the penalties of the law. If I point to the wrong I see in this Christian country, and ask, is this Christianity? you would reply, 'No; what you refer to results from men who live without God in the world.' Then, gentlemen, would you punish me for simply saying that which other men, unpunished, are every day doing?
If I have said that religious revenues should be reduced one half, I spoke only the dictates of humanity at this season of national suffering. Surely it is not blasphemous to argue that human misery should be alleviated at the expense of spiritual pride.
I ask not equal rights with yourselves. You, as Christians, can imprison those who differ from you. I do not offend your pride by asking to be admitted your equals here. I desire not such privileges. I claim merely the right to speak my convictions; to show a man the right path when I think he takes the wrong one.
It is a melancholy maxim in these courts of law, that the greater the truth the greater the libel; and so it would be with me this day could I demonstrate to you that there is no Deity. The more correct I am the severer would be my punishment, because the law regards the belief in a God to be the foundation of obedience among men. But I trust I have convinced you that my views of this question are compatible with the practice of all our duties to our fellow-men, borne out by eminent authority and long experience.
Setting aside the reprobation of persecution by Middleton, by Clarke, by Latimer, and other divines I have quoted; Leslie, Reid, and Bulwer have contended that the objections of the sceptic merely strengthen the fabric of piety they pretend to assail. Gentlemen, which is to be believed, divines and philosophers, or the common law? These persons speak as though they believed Christianity to be true; the common law punishes as though it knew it to be false.
If the state religion be true, my opinion can never overcome it; and by convicting me you publish your consciousness of error in the cause you are placed there to defend as truth. If God be truth you libel him and his power, and publish the omnipotence of error.
When in gaol, I one day opened the rules drawn up by the judges. The 167th opens thus: 'No prisoner shall lie.' Now, gentlemen, how is a man to act under these circumstances in which I am placed? If you find me guilty upon the indictment before you, my case stands in this manner—if I do not lie you imprison me, and if I do you punish me. Turning back to the morality of ancient days, and meditating with delight on their noble sincerity and love of truth, am I to count it a misfortune to live in modern times and among a Christian people?
In your churches, as I have read to you, you implore that truth and justice may descend among men, and: the supplication is a noble one. Gentlemen, will you pray for truth in your churches and brand it in your courts?
The atmosphere of your gaols as little assimilates with my taste as their punishments will accord with my constitution, I seek not these things, I assure you, but when they lie in the path of duty I trust I shall ever prefer them to a dereliction from it.
But, gentlemen, supposing that they are my sentiments that you are requested to punish; you should first do yourselves the justice to reflect what has been said about them and insinuated in this court. Learned divines, and sage writers on atheism, agree that it is too absurd to need refutation—too barren to satisfy, too monstrous to attract, too fearful to allure, too dumb to speak, and too deathly not to appal its own votaries. It is styled too grave to entertain youth, and too devoid of consolation for the trembling wants of age—too abstract for the comprehension of the ignorant, and too unreasonable to gain the admiration of the intelligent. That it is alarming to the timid, and disquieting to the brave-that it negatives everything, and sets up nothing, and is so purely speculative that it can never have a practical bearing on the business of life. Gentlemen, will you disturb the harmony of these conclusions by a verdict against me, and attack that which never existed, and place upon the grave records of this court a slaying of the self-slain? Will you thus draw attention to a subject you perhaps think had better be forgotten, and create a conviction that it must be a greatly important one, since you erect it into public notice by directing the thunders of the law at young and comparatively inexperienced believer in its principle?