Blasphemy is the breastplate of the heartless. And let me say now, that the crime of blasphemy set out in this statute, is impossible. No man can blaspheme a book. No man can commit blasphemy telling his honest thought. No man can blaspheme God, or a Holy Ghost, or a Son of God. The Infinite cannot be blasphemed.
In the olden time, in the days of savagery and superstition, when some poor man was struck by lightning, when a blackened mark was left on the breast of and mother, the poor savage supposed that son angered by something he had done, had taken revenge. What else did the savage suppose? He believed that this God had the same feelings, with to the loyalty of his subjects, that an earthly chief or an earthly king with regard to the loyalty or tread of members of his tribe, or citizens of his kingdom the savage said, when his country was visited by a calamity, when the flood swept the people away, or the storm scattered their poor houses in fragments: "We have allowed some freethinker to live; some one is in our town or village who has not brought his gift to the priest, his incense to the altar; some man of our tribe or of our country does not respect our God." Then, for the purpose of appeasing the supposed God, for the purpose of winning a smile from Heaven, for the purpose of securing a little sunlight for their fields and homes, they drag the accused man from his home, from his wife and children, and with all the ceremonies of pious brutality, shed his blood. They did it in self-defense; they believed that they were saving their own lives and the lives of their children; they did it to appease their God. Most people are now beyond that point. Now, when disease visits a community, the intelligent do not say the disease came because the people were wicked; when the cholera comes, it is not because of the Methodists, of the Catholics, of the Presbyterians, or of the infidels. When the wind destroys a town in the far West, it is not because somebody there had spoken his honest thoughts. We are beginning to see that the wind blows and destroys without the slightest reference to man, without the slightest care whether it destroys the good or the bad, the irreligious or the religious. When the lightning leaps from the clouds it is just as likely to strike a good man as a bad man, and when the great serpents of flame climb around the houses of men, they burn just as gladly and just as joyously, the home of virtue, as they do the den and lair of vice.
Then the reason for all these laws has failed. The laws were made on account of a superstition. That superstition has faded from the minds of intelligent men and, as a consequence, the laws based on the superstition ought to fail.
There is one splendid thing in nature, and that is that men and nations must reap the consequences of their acts—reap them in this world, if they live, and in another, if there be one. That man who leaves this world a bad man, a malicious man, will probably be the same man when he reaches another realm, and the man who leaves this shore good, charitable and honest, will be good, charitable and honest, no matter on what star he lives again. The world is growing sensible upon these subjects, and as we grow sensible, we grow charitable.
Another reason has been given for these laws against blasphemy, the most absurd reason that can by any possibility be given. It is this. There should be laws against blasphemy, because the man who utters blasphemy endangers the public peace.
Is it possible that Christians will break the peace? Is it possible that they will violate the law? Is it probable that Christians will congregate together and make a mob, simply because a man has given an opinion against their religion? What is their religion? They say, "If a man smites you on one cheek, turn the other also." They say, "We must love our neighbors as we love ourselves." Is it possible then, that you can make a mob out of Christians,—that these men, who love even their enemies, will attack others, and will destroy life, in the name of universal love? And yet, Christians themselves say that there ought to be laws against blasphemy, for fear that Christians, who are controlled by universal love, will become so outraged, when they hear an honest man express an honest thought, that they will leap upon him and tear him in pieces.
What is blasphemy? I will give you a definition; I will give you my thought upon this subject. What is real blasphemy?
To live on the unpaid labor of other men—that is blasphemy.
To enslave your fellow-man, to put chains upon his body—that is blasphemy.
To enslave the minds of men, to put manacles upon the brain, padlocks upon the lips—that is blasphemy.