tance, and solely as a result of the
onslaught of freethinkers.

Throughout the ages, when a thinking man had questioned the how and why
of any secular problem, so long as that problem had no direct or
indirect bearing upon religion, or upon any branch of knowledge that was
assumed to be infallibly foretold in the Bible, that man was unmolested.
The problems falling into the above classification were extremely small
due to the strongly defended theological lunacy that asserted itself in
the declaration that all knowledge both spiritual and material was
contained in the Bible as interpreted by the Church.

Man, however, when he broached his religious doubts, was regarded as the
most sinful of beings, and it was forbidden him to question and yield to
the conclusions that his mind evolved.

Think of the irony and tragedy of this self-enslavement of the human
mind! There is one characteristic that man prides himself as having
apart from all lower animals, his ability to reason and to think. Is it
his superior musculature and brute strength that has placed man upon
his present pinnacle of advanced civilization, or is it his mental
development, his mind, that has taught him to harness the forces of
nature? Has not his mind so co-*ordinated his movements that he has
enslaved those forces of nature to be his aid? And yet, if mind is one
thing that has enabled man to pull himself out of the morass of brute
life, why has it been that man himself has been so persistently decrying
and degrading the efforts of that mind?

The answer is, that religion has provided the shackles and securely and
jealously enslaved the mind. With the aid of his religious beliefs man
has been ensnared into a mental prison in which he has been an all too
willing captive. Surely it is easier to believe than to think.

Napoleon, himself a sceptic, was cognizant of this slave philosophy.
"What is it," he is reported to have asked, "that makes the poor man
think it is quite natural that there are fires in my castle when he is
dying of cold? That I have ten coats in my wardrobe while he goes naked?
That at each of my meals enough is served to feed his family for a week?
It is simply religion, which tells him that in another life I shall be
only his equal, and that he actually has more chance of being happy than
I. Yes, we must see to it that the doors of the churches are open to
all, and that it does not cost the poor man much to have prayers said on
his