[Gutenberg 25339] • Atheism Among the People

Excerpt from the book...

I have often asked myself, "Why am I a Republican?--Why am I the

partizan of equitable Democracy, organized and established as a good

and strong Government?--Why have I a real love of the People--a love

always serious, and sometimes even tender?--What has the People done

for me? I was not born in the ranks of the People. I was born between

the high Aristocracy and what was then called *the inferior classes* ,

in the days when there were classes, where are now equal citizens in

various callings. I never starved in the People's famine; I never

groaned, personally, in the People's miseries; I never sweat with its

sweat; I was never benumbed with its cold. Why then, I repeat it, do I

hunger in its hunger, thirst with its thirst, warm under its sun,

freeze under its cold, grieve under its sorrows? Why should I not care

for it as little as for that which passes at the antipodes?--turn away

my eyes, close my ears, think of other things, and wrap myself up in

that soft, thick garment of indifference and egotism, in which I can

shelter myself, and indulge my separate personal tastes, without

asking whether, below me,--in street, garret, or cottage, there is a

rich People, or a beggar People; a religious People, or an atheistic

People; a People of idlers, or of workers; a People of Helots, or of

citizens?"