These are the excuses I have for my race, and taking everything into
consideration, I think we have done extremely well. Let us have more
liberty and free thought. Free thought will give us truth. It is too
early in the history of the world to write a creed. Our fathers were
intellectual slaves; our fathers were intellectual serfs. There never
has been a free generation on the globe. Every creed you have got bears
the mark of whip, and chain, and fagot.
There has been no creed written by a free brain. Wait until we have had
two or three generations of liberty and it will then be time enough to
seize the swift horse of progress by the bridle and say--thus far and
no farther; and in the meantime let us be kind to each other; let us be
decent towards each other. We are all travelers on the great plain we
call life, and there is nobody quite sure what road to take--not just
dead sure, you know. There are lots of guide-boards on the plain and you
find thousands of people swearing to-day that their guide-board is the
only board that shows the right direction. I go and talk to them and
they say: "You go that way, or you will be damned." I go to another and
they say: "You go this way, or you will be damned."