pity.

The priests reveled in horrible descriptions of hell. Concerning
the wrath of God, they grew eloquent. They denounced man as totally
depraved. They made reason blasphemy, and pity a crime. Nothing so
delighted them as painting the torments and sufferings of the lost. Over
the worm that never dies they grew poetic; and the second death filled
them with a kind of holy delight. According to them, the smoke and cries
ascending from hell were the perfume and music of heaven.

At the risk of being tiresome, I have said what I have to show you the
productions of the human mind, when enslaved; the effects of wide-spread
ignorance--the results of fear. I want to convince you that every form
of slavery is a viper, that, sooner or later, will strike its poison
fangs into the bosoms of men.

The first great step towards progress, is, for man to cease to be the
slave of man; the second, to cease to be the slave of the monsters of
his own creation--of the ghosts and phantoms of the air.

For ages the human race was imprisoned.

Through the bars and grates came a few struggling rays of light. Against
these grates and bars Science pressed its pale and thoughtful face,
wooed by the holy dawn of human advancement.

Men found that the real was the useful; that what a man knows is better
than what a ghost says; that an event is more valuable than a prophecy.
They found that diseases were not produced by spirits, and could not be
cured by frightening them away. They found that death was as natural as
life. They began to study the anatomy and chemistry of the human body,
and found that all was natural and within the domain of law.

The conjurer and sorcerer were discarded, and the physician and surgeon
employed. They found that the earth was not flat; that the stars were
not mere specks. They found that being born under a particular planet
had nothing to do with the fortunes of men.

The astrologer was discharged and the astronomer took his place.

They found that the earth had swept through the constellations for
millions of ages. They found that good and evil were produced by natural
causes, and not by ghosts; that man could not be good enough or bad
enough to stop or cause a rain; that diseases were produced as naturally
as grass, and were not sent as punishments upon man for failing to
believe a certain creed. They found that man, through intelligence,
could take advantage of the forces of nature--that he could make the