In Praise Not of God, nor King, nor Wealth

Ne Hóhuu mé

Being a Treatise upon the Just Ordering of Society, and the Deliverance of Mankind from Superstition, Tyranny, and Avarice

Lúeringwan Kúethíxing

Sórent, Thullumia, 1855

Preface

Men speak much in these days of progress, yet bow still before the same old idols. They set steam to work, but their minds they leave in chains. They build the factory, but keep the castle. They cast down the altar of one superstition, only to raise up another.

I have therefore resolved to write a small book in which I shall praise neither God, nor king, nor wealth; but rather that Reason which is in every man; that Labour which sustains all life; and that Fellowship by which alone men may be free.

This Treatise is not written to flatter princes, nor to soothe the rich in their possessions, nor to commend priests in their authority. It is lovingly addressed to those who toil: to the workman in his shop, to the miner in the dark, to the seamstress by her candle, to the ploughman in the field. If they will attend to these pages, perhaps they shall learn that the chains which bind them are neither natural nor eternal, and that there is a way to break them.