Just in proportion that the human race has advanced, the Church has lost power. There is no exception to this rule. No nation ever materially advanced that held strictly to the religion of its founders. No nation ever gave itself wholly to the control of the Church without losing its power, its honor, and existence. Every Church pretends to have found the exact truth. This is the end of progress. Why pursue that which you have? Why investigate when you know? Every creed is a rock in running water; humanity sweeps by it. Every creed cries to the universe, "Halt!" A creed is the ignorant Past bullying the enlightened Present. 188. The Worst Religion in the World The worst religion of the world was the Presbyterianism of Scotland as it existed in the beginning of the eighteenth century. The kirk had all the faults of the church of Rome, without a redeeming feature. The kirk hated music, painting, statuary, and architecture. Anything touched with humanity--with the dimples of joy--was detested and accursed. God was to be feared, not loved. Life was a long battle with the devil. Every desire was of Satan. Happiness was a snare, and human love was wicked, weak, and vain. The Presbyterian priest of Scotland was as cruel, bigoted, and heartless as the familiar of the inquisition. One case will tell it all. In the beginning of this, the nineteenth century, a boy seventeen years of age, Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for blasphemy. He had on several occasions, when cold, jocularly wished himself in hell, that he might get warm. The poor, frightened boy recanted--begged for mercy; but he was found guilty, hanged, thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold; and his weeping mother vainly begged that his bruised and bleeding body might be given to her. 189. Religion Demanding Miracles The founder of a religion must be able to turn water into wine--cure with a word the blind and lame, and raise with a simple touch the dead to life. It was necessary for him to demonstrate to the satisfaction of his barbarian disciple, that he was superior to nature. In times of ignorance this was easy to do. The credulity of the savage was almost boundless. To him the marvelous was the beautiful, the mysterious was the sublime. Consequently, every religion has for its foundation a miracle--that is to say, a violation of nature--that is to say, a falsehood. 190. We Want One Fact