My Friends: Mr. Campbell has very correctly informed us that the Christian scriptures do not in direct terms command us to tell lies, to steal, and to commit all sorts of crimes. But if we are told to do one thing, and circumstances of our nature irresistibly compel us to another thing directly opposed to the precept, we are by such precepts compelled to speak falsehood continually. The fact can be easily established, that throughout all Christendom there is very little truth spoken between man and man; and it is the Christian religion which has created the Christian character. I am told that truth is much more generally spoken among the Mussulmen than among the Christians; but there can be very little truth spoken by either party. I recommend to my young female friends here not to speak the truth upon many subjects most interesting to their happiness through life, because, if they did, they might lay their account in meeting all manner of persecution and inconvenience. Nor did I recommend in a preceding address that the gospel ministers of the present day should be paid for disseminating and perpetuating falsehood, which, to my [237] certain knowledge, many of the most learned and enlightened of the cloth know and believe to be such. I meant simply to give utterance to a great principle of justice; to state that those who had been trained to the gospel ministry were compelled, by circumstances, to adopt that course of life, and I have no doubt that a very large portion of them adopted this course most conscientiously; therefore I deemed it unjust that the great and overwhelming change in society anticipated and predicted by me should deprive any man of his livelihood. But if, as I confidently expect, these principles shall rapidly pervade society, another and a better employment will be assigned to the reverend clergy. They will then become the most efficient and useful oracles to promulgate and expound the divine laws of human nature, and demonstrate their high importance in producing irresistible motives to virtue from their pupils; and after much calm deliberation I am quite sure that this will be the most economical and by far the best mode of disposing of the whole body of the clergy. It will not only be the most economical, equitable, but also the most beneficial for themselves and all mankind. I have told you that it will not be necessary to deprive any individual of his present support in order to effect these anticipated changes; because there exists in society an artificial producing power almost immeasurably beyond the wants of man. Although still rapidly and annually increasing, this artificial producing power is even now, if it were well understood and rightly directed, greatly beyond our wants--it is already far more than equal to the supplying of every child that shall be born into the world a most ample store of everything that is best for human nature. But before this change can commence, we must discover the true principle and the true bond of social union--for most true it is, that there can be no real substantial happiness and improvement in the constitution and frame of society, until men do really and strictly learn to love one another. But have the different religions inculcated in the world yet enabled you to love one another? In this very city are you not calling yourselves the friends and acquaintances of each other, and at the same time striving and contending against each other as if you were avowed and professed enemies.

      Where is the mercantile man to be found, who, if he learns by some private intelligence that certain articles of merchandise will greatly enhance in value, will not go to his dearest friend and buy all that he has of those articles, at the lowest price he can procure them? Now this is very loving, to be sure!

      We are deceived by high-sounding, empty words, and the present state of commercial society is anything but rational; and all [238] society, from the highest to the lowest, in all countries, is becoming commercial, and daily more and more ignorantly selfish. Our circumstances compel us to become covert enemies to each other. Instead of endeavoring to promote each other's happiness, we are straining every nerve to take from others, in order to add superfluities which we cannot enjoy to ourselves. Does not the Christian religion in many other ways create dissensions among men? What say ye to this, ye people of Cincinnati? Are all the religions of this city united heart and soul together? Are there no divisions among them? Are they always willing to accommodate each other? Are there not divisions and dissensions among those who are designated by the same name, and classified as belonging to the same sect? Are there no dissensions among the Baptists, the Quakers, Presbyterians, nor among the Episcopalians? My friends, there is nothing but dissensions and divisions under the present system, from one end of it to the other; dissension pervades the whole mass of society--it leavens the whole lump; and as the march of mind advances, these dissensions will increase, and be the cause of their ultimate overthrow. They have increased already to that extent that those who understand the signs of the times see plainly that, ere long, religion must receive its death-blow. Instead of a system which derationalizes the human race, other times are approaching when we shall have our attention and our faculties directed to what we can comprehend--to the acquisition of real knowledge, and to the investigation of the laws of matter; and, my friends, for us to attempt the investigation of any other laws but material laws is every whit as futile as an attempt to fly from the earth to the sun. Depend upon it that you only waste your time in such searching after immaterial things; such search can only lead you into the wildest regions of the imagination, and then you will find it very difficult to get back again into the paths of common sense. Therefore, I strongly recommend to those who wish to acquire real knowledge, not to sacrifice their time in speculations upon subjects beyond the comprehension of human faculties.

      When we direct our attention to an investigation of the laws of nature, no quarrels are originated; and why? because we can recur to facts; we can re-examine and discriminate by the criteria of real knowledge the truth from error. We may say, indeed, that the present era is the commencement of a search into the real nature of existing facts which will bring about the millennium, by which term I simply mean a rational state of social existence, in which sincerity and candor shall universally prevail--when, through a [239] knowledge of facts, human nature will be laid open to that extent that we shall know ourselves and know our fellow-beings even as we are known. But the only way to commence this rational state of existence, is, to lay a solid foundation for genuine charity and social affection; and there are no principles under heaven that can guide us to these desirable results unless it be the knowledge that we have no will, power, or control in framing our belief on any speculative subjects, and no free agency or volition in the matter of our likings or dislikings. These are the only sure foundations for a genuine love and universal charity among mankind. When these admirable principles, old as they are, shall begin to be comprehended, love and charity will be sure to extend themselves even unto the uttermost part of the earth. Let but these twelve laws be once generally understood, and I know of no motive which could actuate any human being to enter into strife and contention with, or to think or feel uncharitably toward, any of his species. Therefore, my friends, by discarding the practices of the wild imagination of our easily deluded ancestors, in which all the religions of the world have had their origin, and which they have forced into our minds by the means of the mutual laws which I have explained, you will in lieu thereof adopt the laws of nature for your guides; and these will always lead you to the best and most rational practice that can be adopted--a practice of those amiable virtues and that genuine charity which will better prepare you for heaven, if you are destined to go there, than anything that has yet been taught you, or than anything that has yet been done for you; and I cannot conceive it possible that a life approaching to what is represented by your spiritual teachers to be a heavenly conduct here, can unfit those who have had this foretaste of heaven in this life for the enjoyment of a superior existence hereafter. But, my friends, I have not the remotest idea that in a future state of reanimation we shall retain the least consciousness of our former state of vitality. My investigations on this subject have convinced me that it is a speculation in which no man ever has or can arrive at anything tangible. I believe that in one sense we shall live forever, for I cannot suppose that the particles of which we are compounded have ever been out of existence. It seems reasonable that the material particles of which we are composed are uncreated, that is, that they belong to the original stock of matter which forms the universe. In my judgment, there is nothing so absurd as the supposition that a particle of matter could be created out of nothing. If you are prepared to swallow such an absurdity as this, you may swallow a camel or anything [240] else. I have said that to me it appears the greatest of all impossibilities, that one atom of something could be created out of nothing; but it also appears to me an equal impossibility that one atom of matter consisting of something can ever be reduced to nothing. I conceive, therefore, that the supreme power consists in the indestructible vitality pervading the whole material universe, and that each particle of this universe contains within itself everlasting and unchangeable laws; and it is by the action, the harmony, and the co-operation of these laws, that all composition, decomposition, and recomposition in the universe are effected. Let us not, therefore, waste our valuable time about spiritual nonentities which cannot interest us; but let us rather diligently apply all our faculties to discover the yet unknown laws of our nature, by which we shall ascertain the means to make our species as happy and prosperous as the materials of which we are organized will permit. If we will adopt this course of practice, and strictly adhere to it, I can see nothing that can possibly prevent our attainment to a very high degree of physical and intellectual perfection and happiness. I have now perhaps given sufficient details to prove that all religions tend directly to produce vice and disunion among mankind. I have now to show that they produce the natural consequences of vice and disunion, viz: misery.

      The errors which the various religions of the world have, for ages past, forced into the minds of the human race, have been the cause of all the poverty which now exists in the world; and these religions have generated this poverty in two ways: first, by creating universal disunion among men, so as to prevent the possibility of any cordial cooperation for their reciprocal benefit and advantage; and secondly, by reason of the very large appropriations of the time and gains of the people, which the clergy, like the Levites of old, have engrossed to themselves and their mysterious, and, therefore, useless objects.

      I discover from Mr. Campbell, that the Levites could not be contented with less than one-half of the property of the whole nation. Now it really does appear to me, that a society which could permit a small select tribe to appropriate to their own use one-half of the whole revenue of the nation, and allow that tribe to form and keep the records of their mysteries, and even to make it a capital crime to approach the sacred chest which contained them, must be in the extreme of ignorance and easily duped. I must also say, that, under such circumstances, there never was a set of men who had a finer chance of manufacturing and perpetuating fables to suit their own purposes, and of obtaining the means to degrade and enslave their fellow-beings, [241] than had this same tribe of Levi. There is nothing more true, my friends, than that religion has been the primary cause of all the poverty that has for ages past afflicted the world. You have all of you received your religious notions at an age so early that your reasoning faculties have been thereby not only injured, but, in the majority of cases, destroyed to an extent which cannot be estimated or understood by the great mass of the present adult population. In consequence, the mind of man, instead of being rationally directed to discover what is best for human nature, has been so perverted as to consider the acquisition of wealth as the grand desideratum, and to appropriate millions to themselves while their fellows were starving around them, as the summum bonum of human felicity. Now it was my lot to commence the world with no property at all; and since that time I have experienced as gradual a change of fortune upward as most individuals, but I never found that I enjoyed happiness as wealth increased, or in proportion to any expenditure. I never found that I could eat, drink, or sleep any more in a state of affluence, than when through my own industry I procured the simple necessaries of life in comfort. But I found by experience, that when I had the most wealth I had the most care and anxiety. I have lived on intimate terms with some very wealthy men--some of them possessing a property estimated at several hundred thousand, and millions sterling. These men I have studied closely, and I think them and their families less happy than many whom I have known with little more than barely sufficient to supply the necessary wants of life. If it were not for the aberrations of the human mind, originating in the errors of religion, we should soon discover the means of creating and enjoying an ample supply of the best of everything for human nature, and of cultivating our physical and intellectual faculties to a comparatively high degree of perfection.

[COD 237-242]