Flowers of Freethought (First Series)

A sinner is a person on bad terms with his God. But who, it may be asked, is on good terms with him? No one. According to Christianity, at any rate, we have all sinned; nay, we...

Whatever its origin, the designation is a happy one. It fits like a glove, Repeat it to the first man you meet, and though he never heard it before, he will knew that you mean a...

There are two things in the world that can never get on together--religion and common sense. Religion deals with the next life, common sense with this; religion points to the sk...

But let us return to the point of ridicule, and the point of "blasphemy." Dr. Coit found two "lessons for the day" in my _Philosophy of Secularism_, and he spoke of my _Shadow o...

Common people, however, who did the work of the world, were not able to do much god-making. Their leisure and ability were both limited. But they had a large capacity for admiri...

When predestination was really believed, the friends of the greatest saint only _hoped_ he had gone to heaven. When they are _sure_ of it predestination is dead. Nay, hell itsel...

What a boon it is to think freely, to let the intellect dart out in quest of truth at every point of the compass, to feel the delight of the chase and the gladness of capture! W...

PREFACE. OLD NICK. FIRE!!! SKY PILOTS. DEVIL DODGERS. FIGHTING SPOOKS. DAMNED SINNERS. WHERE IS HELL? SPURGEON AND HELL. IS SPURGEON IN HEAVEN? GOD IN JAPAN. STANLEY ON PROVIDEN...

France now mourns the death of Victor Hugo, the great poet of the Republic, as Gambetta was its great orator and statesman. These two, in their several ways, did the most to dem...

After a remarkably short hour's tramp round the exercise ring in a thieves' procession, doing the rogue's march without the music, I returned to my cell, and sitting down on my...

What share Providence had in the matter is not very apparent. Strong arms and stout hearts were in the lifeboat, and that accounts for her reaching the wreck. Had the rowers the...

It is dogmatism also to assert that "the soul has every reason to believe itself absolutely eternal." Absolutely is a word of vast significance. How can it apply to "the soul"?...

That nothing walks with aimless feet; That not one life should be destroyed, Or cast as rubbish to the void, When God hath made the pile complete; That not a worm is cloven in v...

A volume might be filled with illustrations of the mythology of the Resurrection. Our present space is limited, and we must let the above suffice. Anyone who reads the gospel st...

The nature of this great man was suited to his task. It required no great intellectual power to see through the tricks of Papal priestcraft, which had, indeed, been the jest of...

So much (it is quite enough) for the libel; and now for the impertinence. Mr. Gosse pretends to know Shelley's mind better than he knew it himself. Shelley called himself an Ath...

What has happened to Providence since the Bible days? Miracles then were clear, convincing, and artistically rounded. You could not possibly mistake them for anything else. Baal...