Freedom of Speech

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Jun 27, 1865

Freedom of Speech.

Talk, merely for the sake of talk, is contemptible. It can do no possible good. While we admire frankness and plainness of speech, while the honest expression of honest sentiment, commands universal respect, the inveterate "blower" is an object of detestation. The "freedom of speech" which stands at the head of certain newspaper columns, cannot have reference to rattle-headed, shallow-headed, vindictive persons who talk just to make a noise. But while some plead loud for freedom of speech, they reserve to themselves the right of prescribing to others the form, the subject and the style of speech.

What shall be said and how it shall be uttered, certain proscriptionists claim the right to dictate. Give us a soul, filled with lofty noble sentiment, a mind of intelligent and practical cultivation; and then unfetter the lips, and let the tongue carry the precious burden of thought. Certain persons have souls of such excessive tenderness, that words must be carved and shapen in the most meaningless manner to suit. They are just like a good old lady, educated in the "straitest" way, who lived over among the New England hills. Her minister had grown too plain, too pointed, and the sensitive old lady could not endure it. In the course of time another one was employed. After listening to a sermon from the new minister, she was asked how she liked him. "Liked him," said the old lady, "he is the blessedest man I ever did hear. He didn't say one word about politics, temperance, religion or anything else." It is no use to attempt to please these tender spirits and retain one particle of your manhood.