But as long as people will give up their reason, and be hoodwinked with the nonsense that God is angry, and that they are every moment in danger of falling into hell, so long will the Christian priesthood riot in profusion and plenty, by dealing out damnation to those whose only crime is enmity against God. So completely hoodwinked is man, that he attends weekly, and pays well into the bargain, to hear the priest deal out endless damnation to nine-tenths of the human race; and it is ten chances to one that he also is included among the subjects of the Devil! Should an Orthodox preacher, for a few Sundays, preach on moral subjects, and consider that morality was the one thing needful in the Christian Church, the congregation would complain that their souls required more substantial nourishment. The preacher must return to the old mode of teaching, and again shake them over the lake of fire! And hence it follows, that, as the people, are not satisfied without having the wrath of God the constant theme, the preacher gives it as they wish to have it. An angry God; a cunning, crafty and tempting Devil; and the enmity of man’s wicked heart: this is the set of tools by which the Christian teacher carries on his theological trade. The discordancy of religious opinions, and all of them taken from the doctrines as taught by Jesus and the apostles, each preacher referring to the favorite passages which support his views, is and will be, a never-ending theme of disputation; and at some future period, may renew the practice of burning each other alive for God’s glory. Nothing but the spread of Infidelity can completely stop this dreadful evil. We have only to suppose, that, at some future time, the savages who have been what is called converted by preachers of opposite sects, such as the Calvinist and the Universalist, or the Trinitarians and Unitarians, should, by some cause not now foreseen, be left by the missionaries to support the Christian church; then the savage converts of different sects would be very likely to fall on each other, and the fires of Smithfield, which Infidelity, the companion of humanity, has extinguished, may again blaze on the Islands of the Pacific Ocean. This is a very probable case; for, in the present day, the same Bible is the text book of all denominations, and all of them would persecute if they had but the power. Christianity is now what it ever has been, and what it ever will be, a persecuting religion; and, although the fires of martyrdom cease to torment the human race, the embers are still emitting smoke, and may again be rekindled. Nothing short of _unbelief in all divine revelation_, openly and fearlessly avowed, can guarantee the human family against a renewal of the religious butchery of past ages. CHAPTER V.