l sorts and conditions of libellous
Christians. Where are the evidences of Atheistic cruelty? The humanest
of the Roman emperors were those who were least under the sway of
religion. Julius Caesar himself, the "foremost man of all this world,"
who was a professed Atheist, was also the most magnanimous victor that
ever wore the purple. Akbar, the Freethinker, was the noblest ruler of
India. Frederick the Great was kind and just to his subjects. But, on
the other hand, who invented and who applied such instruments of cruelty
as racks, wheels, and thumbscrews? Who invented separate tortures
for every part of the sensitive frame of man? Who burnt heretics? Who
roasted or drowned millions of "witches"? Who built dungeons and filled
them? Who brought forth cries of agony from honest men and women that
rang to the tingling stars? Who burnt Bruno? Who spat filth over the
graves of Paine and Voltaire? The answer is one word--Christians.
Yet with all this blood on their hands, and all this crime on their
consciences, they turn round and fling the epithet of "cruel" at the
perennial victims of their malice.

ARE ATHEISTS WICKED?

One of the most effective arts of priestcraft has been the
misrepresentation and slander of heretics. To give the unbeliever a bad
name is to prejudice believers against all communication with him.
By this means a twofold object is achieved; first, the faithful are
protected from the contagion of scepticism; secondly, the notion is
propagated that there is something essentially immoral involved in, or
attendant upon, unorthodox opinions; and thus the prevalent religious
ideas of the age become associated with the very preservation and
stability of the moral order of human society.

This piece of trickery cannot, of course, be played upon the students
of civilisation, who, as Mill remarked, are aware that many of the most
valuable contributions to human improvement have been the work of men
who knew, and rejected, the Christian faith. But it easily imposes on
the multitude, and it will never be abandoned until it ceases to be
profitable.

Sometimes it takes the form of idle stories about the death-beds of
Freethinkers, who are represented as deploring their ill-spent life, and
bewailing the impossibility of recalling the wicked opinions they have
put into circulation. At other times it takes the form of exhibiting
their failings, without the slightest reference to their virtues, as
the sum and s