second to
sell, on a third to hunt, on a fourth to do nothing. If a child was born
on such a day, it would live; if on another, its life would be sickly;
if on another, it would perish early.[57] Their descendants who reject
the Bible are fully as superstitious. Astrologers, and Mediums, and
Clairvoyants, in multitudes, find a profitable trade among them; and one
prominent anti-Bible lecturer will cure you of any disease you have, if
you will only inclose, in a letter, a lock of hair from the right
temple, and--a--five dollar bill.

The precepts of even the wisest men, and the laws of the best regulated
States, commanded or approved of vice. In Babylon prostitution was
compulsory on every female. The Carthaginian law required human
sacrifices. When Agathoclas besieged Carthage, two hundred children, of
the most noble families, were murdered by the command of the senate, and
three hundred citizens voluntarily sacrificed themselves to Saturn.[58]
The laws of Sparta required theft, and the murder of unhealthy
children. Those of ancient Rome allowed parents the power of killing
their children, if they pleased. At Athens, the capital of heathen
literature and philosophy, it was enacted "that infants which appeared
to be maimed should either be killed or exposed."[59]

Plato, dissatisfied with the constitution, made a scheme of one much
better, which he has left us in his Republic. In this great advance of
society, this heathen millennium, we find that there was to be a
community of women and of property, just as among our modern heathens.
Women's rights were to be maintained by having the women trained to war.
Children were still to be murdered, if convenience called for it. And
the young children were to be led to battle at a safe distance, "that
the young whelps might early scent carnage, and be inured to slaughter."

The teachings of all these philosophers were immoral. He may lie, says
Plato, who knows how to do it. Pride and the love of popular applause
were esteemed the best motives to virtue. Profane swearing was commanded
by the example of all their best writers and moralists. Oaths are
frequent in the writings of Plato and Seneca. The gratification of the
sensual appetites was openly taught. Aristippus taught that a wise man
might steal and commit adultery when he could. Unnatural crimes were
vindicated. The last dread crime--suicide--was pleaded for by Cicero and
Seneca as the mark of a hero; and Demosthenes, Ca