Orthodox Christians have the habit of claiming all great men, all men who have held important positions, men of reputation, men of wealth. As soon as the funeral is over clergymen begin to relate imaginary conversations with the deceased, and in a very little while the great man is changed to a Christian - possibly to a saint.

When the will defies fear, when duty throws the gauntlet down to fate, when honor scorns to compromise with death - that is heroism.

There is no harmony between religion and science. When science was a child, religion sought to strangle it in the cradle. Now that science has attained its youth, and superstition is in its dotage, the trembling, palsied wreck says to the athlete: "Let us be friends."

Martyrdom, as a rule, establishes the sincerity of the martyr, never the correctness of his thought. Things are true or false in themselves.

Logic is not satisfied with assertion. It cares nothing for the opinions of the great; nothing for the prejudices of the many, and least of all for the superstitions of the dead.

The old doctrine that God wanted man to do something for him, and that he kept a watchful eye upon all the children of men; that he rewarded the virtuous and punished the wicked, is gradually fading from the mind. We know that some of the worst men have what the world calls success. We know that some of the best men lie upon the straw of failure. We know that honesty goes hungry, while larceny sits at the banquet. We know that the vicious have every physical comfort, while the virtuous are often clad in rags.

A believer is a bird in a cage, a freethinker is an eagle parting the clouds with tireless wing.