Despite discouraging signs here and there, the seeds of freedom planted by the American Revolution will take root, and throughout the world, if man will learn to zealously guard his freedom, Peace and Progress will come to all the world.
Could there be a more significant illustration than this:
Practically in our own lifetime, and certainly since the Declaration of Independence, man has wrought the most amazing achievements in the field of science and progress ever recorded in human history.
Not in their order, nor according to their significance, do I record the following:
Anesthesia was discovered.
Do you know what it means to relieve man of his pain and suffering? Anesthesia is the most humane of all of man's accomplishments, and what a merciful accomplishment it was.
For this great discovery we are indebted to Dr. W. T. G. Morton.
Do you know that the religionists opposed the use of anesthesia on the ground that God sent pain as a punishment for sin, and it was considered the greatest of sacrileges to use it—just think of it, a sin to relieve man of his misery! What a monstrous perversion! This one instance alone should convince you of the difference in believing in God or not.
No believer in God would have spent his energies to discover anesthesia. He would have been in mortal fear of the wrath of his God for interfering with his "divine plan," of making man suffer for having eaten of the fruit of the "Tree of Knowledge."