king of miracles, and why human
actions alone are now to be seen in this world of ours.

We are witnessing today what happened in the Roman empire during the
decline of polytheism. Draper states: "Between that period during which
a nation has been governed by its imagination, and that in which it
submits to reason, there is a melancholy interval. The constitution of
man is such that, for a long time after he has discovered the
incorrectness of the ideas prevailing around him, he shrinks from
openly emancipating himself from their dominion, and, constrained by the
force of circumstances, he becomes a hypocrite, publicly applauding what
his private judgment condemns. Where a nation is making this passage, so
universal do these practices become that it may be truly said hypocrisy
is organized. It is possible that whole communities might be found
living in this deplorable state."

And, indeed, in our own country we are witnessing an example of this
very thing. Religion has led to widespread hypocrisy. Our religious
influences have created a race of men mentally docile and obedient to
the dictates of tyrannical ecclesiasticism. It has created a fear of
truth, and our minds are still brutish and puerile in our methods of
reasoning. Credulity has led to stultification, and stultification of
the mind is the bitter fruit which we have been reaping for thousands of
years.

There are probably hundreds of thousands of men and women in these
United States that give lip-service to their creed, but deep in the
recesses of their minds a small voice cries to them and shames them, for
as soon as they reason, they become sceptics. How can we know the actual
number of earthlings that are sceptics? It is impossible in our present
state of development. Religious persecution today is just as active as
it was during the Middle Ages. Surely, a man is not burned at the stake
for his scepticism in this age; but is he not done to death? If the
grocer, the butcher, the doctor, the lawyer, the scholar, the business
man, were to boldly announce his scepticism, what would happen to him?
The answer is well known to all. Immediately, each of his religious
customers would take it upon himself to act as a personal inquisition.
The sceptic would be shunned socially, he would be ignored, his wares
would be sought after elsewhere, and he would suffer. His wife, his
family, his children, would suffer with him, for our economic scheme
makes the would-be sce