The Story of My Mind

the guise of a new name we were all slowly slipping back into the net of theology, from which we had escaped after years of struggle and suffering. Whe

what a powerful influence my new environment exerted upon me. In a lecture delivered before the Chicago Ethical Society, I try to prove the spiritual resurrection of Jesus, and His incomparable greatness. In another, delivered before the New York Society, in Carnegie Music Hall, I fail to appreciate the services of such intellectual Titans as Voltaire and Thomas Paine-who flung thems

early than ever before, perhaps, because of my temporary backsliding or egarement, as the French would it is as impossible to construct a character of Jesus as it is to write a life of Jesus out of the data in hand. No less an authority than Prof. Conybeare, of Oxford, Fellow of the British Academy and Doctor of Theology, admits that "We cannot, then, aspire to write a life of Jesus. Even Renan failed, and from the hands of a Farrar we merely get under this rubric a farago of falsehood, absurdity, and charlatanry." * This is strong language, but there is no exaggeration in it. If, however, a life of Jesus cannot be written, it follows that, under the circumstanc

ic and Mora

About Jesu

ependent Society in Chicago. Was not one liberal society enough in Chicago? it was asked. Did not the Ethical platform answer the purposes which the proposed society wished to serve? Would I not be dividing and thereby weakening the cause by engaging a new lecture hall? My critics did not object to my going to cities where there were no Ethical Societies, but in cities where there was one, I was not needed, was their argument. But time has shown that the society of which I have been th

tinued to hold his slaves. From time to time others came demanding freedom for the slaves, but they met a similar fate. Some of the preachers of freedom were bur

ect, the slave-holder changed his policy. He received the messengers of liberty with great courtesy

d, very politely. "It is their right, and it alone can

ard that laudible end, but on one condition: they shall continu

heir own unfettered and enlightened consciences. Besides, you have been an evil Master, and can no longer be entrusted with the care of others. With the fall of slavery falls all your

proposition: "We will come in and do what we can to educate and reform the people. We will say nothing to them about

k that the intellectual bondage of the church is not an obstacle to the moral and mental development of man, the latter hold, and to my mind

arge membership and a much larger audience which regularly fills Orchestra Hall-the largest and finest on Michigan Avenue, but it has also, together with the other progressive forces at play in the modern world, profoundly influenced the life and thought of the community. Superstition is more ashamed t

fear of the gods and their priests-a soldier to help man break his holy chains-gives him all the alertness, watchfulness, and courage of a sentinel at his vigil. There have been those who have helped man to political liberty, and others who are nobly endeavoring to help him conquer industrial liberty: but not until man has thrown off the yoke of the gods can he be free indeed. The last king to be dethroned is the heavenly king. If he stays, Tzar and Kaiser, tyrant and despot, pope and