"Be it enacted by the Right Honorable, the Lord Proprie- "tor, by and with the advice and consent of his lordship's "governor, and the upper and lower houses of the Assembly, "and the authority of the same: "That if any person shall hereafter, within this province, "wittingly, maliciously, and advisedly, by writing or speaking, "blaspheme or curse God, or deny our Saviour, Jesus Christ to "be the son of God, or shall deny the Holy Trinity, the Father, "Son, and Holy Ghost, or the God-head of any of the three "persons, or the unity of the God-head, or shall utter any pro- "fane words concerning the Holy Trinity, or any of the persons "thereof, and shall thereof be convict by verdict, shall, for the "first offence be bored through the tongue, and fined twenty "pounds to be levied of his body. And for the second offence, "the offender shall be stigmatized by burning in the forehead "with the letter B, and fined forty pounds. And that for the "third offence, the offender shall suffer death without the "benefit of clergy. The strange thing about this law is, that it has never been repealed, and is still in force in the District of Columbia. Laws like this were in force in most of the colonies, and in all countries where the Church had power. In the Old Testament, the death penalty was attached to hundreds of offences. It has been the same in all Christian countries. To-day, in civilized governments, the death penalty is attached only to murder and treason; and in some, it has been entirely abolished. What a commentary upon the divine humbugs of the world! In the day of Thomas Paine the Church was ignorant, bloody and relentless. In Scotland the "Kirk" was at the summit of its power. It was a full sister of the Spanish Inquisition. It waged war upon human nature. It was the enemy of happiness, the hater of joy, and the despiser of religious liberty. It taught parents to murder their children rather than to allow them to propagate error. If the mother held opinions of which the infamous "Kirk" disapproved, her children were taken from her arms, her babe from her very bosom, and she was not allowed to see them, or to write them a word. It would not allow ship-wrecked sailors to be rescued from drowning on Sunday. It sought to annihilate pleasure, to pollute the heart by filling it with religious cruelty and gloom, and to change mankind into a vast horde of pious, heartless fiends. One of the most famous Scotch divines said: "The Kirk holds that religious toleration is not far from blasphemy." And this same Scotch Kirk denounced, beyond measure, the man who had the moral grandeur to say, "The world is my country, and to do good my religion." And this same Kirk abhorred the man who said, "Any system of religion that shocks the mind of a child cannot be a true system."