Do not trample upon these people because they have a different
conception of things about which even this committee knows nothing.
Give them the same privilege you enjoy of making a God after their own
fashion. And let them describe him as they will. Would you be willing
to have them remain, if one of their race, thousands of years ago, had
pretended to have seen God, and had written of him as follows: "There
went up a smoke out of his nostrils, and fire out of his mouth; coals
were kindled by it, * * * and he rode upon a cherub and did fly." Why
should you object to these people on account of their religion? Your
objection has in it the spirit of hate and intolerance. Of that spirit
the Inquisition was born. That spirit lighted the fagot, made the
thumb-screw, put chains upon the limbs, and lashes upon the backs of
men. The same spirit bought and sold, captured and kidnapped human
beings; sold babes, and justified all the horrors of slavery.