I was forced, through seeing the error of their foundation, to abandon all belief in every religion which had been taught to man. But my religious feelings were immediately replaced by the spirit of universal charity — not for a sect, or a party, or for a country or a colour — but for the human race, and with a real and ardent desire to do good.

Life of Robert Owen (1857) his autobiography, as quoted by Jim Herrick, in "Bradlaugh and Secularism: 'The Province of the Real'" (1990)