We are obliged to grant that all this is true; and to this may be added, that in these shocking devastations, the blind ferocity of the Christians was everywhere written in blood, whereas the behavior of their opponents was frequently marked by clemency. As an instance let us compare the conduct of Saladin with that of Godfrey of Bouillon, and his followers, though shame and detestation would draw a veil over the contrast: when the latter took Jerusalem, an indiscriminate butchery took place; neither age nor sex was spared; and _after the surrender_, the streets streamed with the blood of at least seven thousand victims. When Saladin retook the place, no lives were taken _after the surrender_; and he showed the greatest kindness to the Christian captives; _giving those who were poor their liberty without ransom_. The massacres of Antioch and Thessalonica, by the Emperor Theodosius, may be regarded as other instances of sectarian ferocity, partaking, as they certainly did, of religious animosity. Did the Emperor Julian punish these Antiochians in any way whatever, when they heaped upon him every kind of abuse and indignity?* * Did he not also spare the ten or more Christian soldiers of his own army, who were proved to have conspired against his life? Descending from the great and general calamities which the Christian superstition has entailed upon nations, let us notice a very few of its malignant persecutions of individuals whose only crimes were superior genius, learning, and science; and this persecution has ever been marked by a deadly rancor, which plainly shows that the study and knowledge of Nature is incompatible with, and a decided enemy to, this theological fabrication. Before the time of Copernicus, and the famous Galileo, Christians were taught by their priests, that the sun revolved round the earth; that the latter was flat like a table, (it is quite clear that the Bible-makers knew no better) and one-third longer than it was broad, hence our terms of latitude and longitude. Copernicus showed the absurdity of these notions, and taught that the sun is the centre of his own, or the solar, system, in which this globe of ours is comparatively but a mole-hill. But knowing of the hosts of priests who were ready to pounce upon him if he discovered these truths openly, he declined to publish his works till near the time of his death, and he lived just long enough to receive a corrected copy of them.