war, which will last while my life endures. I will not have my
people blinded and stupefied by priests. I will suffer no other king
in Prussia. I alone will be king. These proud priests may decide, in
silence and humility, to teach their churches and intercede for
them; but let them once attempt to play the role of small popes, and
to exalt themselves as the only possessors of the key to heaven,
then they shall find in me an adversary who will prove to them that
the key is false with which they shut up the Holiest of Holies, and
is but used by them as a means to rob the people of their worldly
goods. Light and truth shall be the device of my whole land. This
will I seek after, and by this will I govern Prussia. I will have no
blinded subjects, no superstitious, conscience-stricken, trembling,
priest-ridden slaves. My people shall learn to think; thought shall
be free as the wanton air in Prussia; no censor or police shall
limit her boundary. The thoughts of men should be like the life-
giving and beautifying sun, all-nourishing and all-enlightening;
calling into existence and fructifying, not only the rich, and rare,
and lovely, but also the noxious and poisonous plant and the
creeping worm. These have also the right of life: if left to
themselves, they soon die of their own insignificance or
nothingness--die under the contempt of all the good and great."

"I fear," said Jordan, "that Frederick the Great is the only man
whose mind is so liberal and so unprejudiced. Believe me, my king,
there is no living sovereign in Europe who dares guarantee to his
subjects free thought and free speech."

"I will try so to act as to leave nothing to fear from the largest
liberty of thought or speech," said the king, quietly. "Men may
think and say of me what they will--that troubles me not; I will