tion, by worshiping a book, by the cultivation of credulity,
by observing certain times and days, by counting beads, by gazing at
crosses, by hiring others to repeat verses and prayers, by burning
candles and ringing bells, by enslaving each other and putting out the
eyes of the soul. All this has been done to appease and flatter these
monsters of the air.

In the history of our poor world, no horror has been omitted, no infamy
has been left undone by the believers in ghosts,--by the worshipers of
these fleshless phantoms. And yet these shadows were born of cowardice
and malignity. They were painted by the pencil of fear upon the canvas
of ignorance by that artist called superstition.

From, these ghosts, our fathers received information. They were
the schoolmasters of our ancestors. They were the scientists and
philosophers, the geologists, legislators, astronomers, physicians,
metaphysicians and historians of the past. For ages these ghosts were
supposed to be the only source of real knowledge. They inspired men to
write books, and the books were considered sacred. If facts were found
to be inconsistent with these books, so much the worse for the facts,
and especially for their discoverers. It was then, and still is,
believed that these books are the basis of the idea of immortality; that
to give up these volumes, or rather the idea that they are inspired, is
to renounce the idea of immortality. This I deny.

The idea of immortality, that like a sea has ebbed and flowed in the
human heart, with its countless waves of hope and fear, beating against
the shores and rocks of time and fate, was not born of any book, nor of
any creed, nor of any religion. It was born of human affection, and it
will continue to ebb and flow beneath the mists and clouds of doubt
and darkness as long as love kisses the lips of death. It is the
rainbow--Hope shining upon the tears of grief.

From the books written by the ghosts we, have at last ascertained
that they knew nothing about the world in which we live. Did they
know anything about the next! Upon every point where contradiction is
possible, they have been contradicted.

By these ghosts, by these citizens of the air, the affairs of government
were administered; all authority to govern came from them. The emperors,
kings and potentates all had commissions from these phantoms. Man was
not considered as the source of any power whatever. To rebel against the
king was to rebel against t