Now and then, in the history of this world, a man of genius, of sense, of intellectual honesty has appeared. These men have denounced the superstitions of their day. They pitied the multitude. To see priests devour the substance of the people filled them with indignation. These men were honest enough to tell their thoughts. Then they were denounced, condemned, executed. Some of them escaped the fury of the people who loved their enemies, and died naturally in their beds. It would not be for the church to admit that they died peacefully. That would show that religion was not actually necessary in the last moment. Religion got much of its power from the terror of death. Superstition is the child of ignorance and fear. The first grave was the first cathedral. The first corpse was the first priest. It would not do to have the common people understand that a man could deny the Bible, refuse to look at the cross, contend that Christ was only a man, and yet die as calmly as Calvin did after he had murdered Servetus, or as King David, after advising one son to kill another. 178. The Sixteenth Century In the sixteenth century every science was regarded as an outcast and an enemy, and the church influenced the world, which was under its power, to believe anything, and the ignorant mob was always too ready, brutalized by the church, to hang, kill or crucify at their bidding. Such was the result of a few centuries of Christianity. 179. An Orthodox Gentleman By Orthodox I mean a gentleman who is petrified in his mind, whooping around intellectually, simply to save the funeral expenses of his soul. 180. A Bold Assertion The churches point to their decayed saints, and their crumbled Popes and say, "Do you know more than all the ministers that ever lived?" And without the slightest egotism or blush I say, yes, and the name of Humboldt outweighs them all. The men who stand in the front rank, the men who know most of the secrets of nature, the men who know most are to-day the advanced infidels of this world. I have lived long enough to see the brand of intellectual inferiority on every orthodox brain. 181. History a Bloody Farce! If we admit that some infinite being has controlled the destinies of persons and peoples, history becomes a most cruel and bloody farce. Age after age, the strong have trampled upon the weak; the crafty and heartless have ensnared and enslaved the simple and innocent, and nowhere, in all the annals of mankind, has any god succored the oppressed. 182. Weak ones Suffering--Heaven deaf