Is it nothing to free the mind? Is it nothing to civilize mankind? Is it
nothing to fill the world with light, with discovery, with science?
Is it nothing to dignify man and exalt the intellect? Is it nothing to
grope your way into the dreary prisons, the damp and dropping dungeons,
the dark and silent cells of superstition, where the souls of men
are chained to floors of stone? Is it nothing to conduct these souls
gradually into the blessed light of day,--to let them see again the
happy fields, the sweet, green earth, and hear the everlasting music of
the waves? Is it nothing to make men wipe the dust from their swollen
knees, the tears from their blanched and furrowed cheeks? Is it nothing
to relieve the heavens of an insatiate monster, and write upon the
eternal dome, glittering with stars, the grand word--Liberty?