l of declared Freethinkers from its
ranks. No one in the least acquainted with political organisation would
think of disputing this.

Belief in God is the source and principle of all tyranny. This lies in
the very nature of things. For what is God? All definitions of religion
from Johnson's down to that of the latest dictionary agree on this one
point, that it is concerned with man's relations to _the unknown_.
Yes, God is the Unknown, and theology is the science of ignorance. Earl
Beaconsfield, in his impish way, once said that where our knowledge ends
our religion begins. A truer word was never spoken.

Now the unknown is the terrible. We become fearful the moment we
confront the incalculable. Go through the history of religions, consult
the various accounts of savage and barbarous faiths at present extant,
and you will find that the principle of terror, springing from the
unknown, is the essential feature in which they all agree. This terror
inevitably begets slavishness. We cannot be cowardly in this respect
without its affecting our courage in others. The mental serf is a bodily
serf too, and spiritual fetters are the agencies of political thraldom.
The man who worships a tyrant in heaven naturally submits his neck to
the yoke of tyrants on earth. He who bows his intellect to a priest
will yield his manhood to a king. Everywhere on earth we find the same
ceremonies attending every form of dependence. The worshipper who now
kneels in prayer to God, like the courtier who backs from the presence
of the monarch, is performing an apology for the act of prostration
which took place alike before the altar and the throne. In both cases it
was the adoration of fear, the debasement of the weak before the seat of
irresponsible power.

Authority is still the principle of our most refined creeds. The
majority of Christians believe in salvation by faith; and what is the
God of that dogma but a capricious tyrant, who saves or damns according
to his personal whim? The ministers of Protestantism, like the priests
of Catholicism, recognise this practically in their efforts to regulate
public education. They dare not trust to the effect of persuasion on
the unprejudiced mind; they must bias the minds of children by means of
dogmatic teaching. They bend the twig in order to warp the tree.

Now God is the supreme principle of authority as he is the essence
of the unknown. He is thus the head, front and symbol of terror and
slavery,