All this has been done to maintain various denominations of aristocratic tyranny, combined with rapacious priests, in whose minds were seated the deepest hypocrisy and the blackest vices--who carried humanity on their lips, and robbery and murder in their hearts. The victims of Christianity far exceed in number the whole that have fallen by all the other idolatrous superstitions which at any time have plagued the world; and most truly did it announce that it "came not to send peace on earth, but a sword;" a sword that never has, and never will find a scabbard, until the whole baseless fabric of delusion shall sink into merited oblivion; we would say a thousand times over--look at Spain--look at Ireland--look at any country in Europe before the 17th century, and you will see the priests reeking with gore. And if you are not utterly lost in ignorance and prejudice, you will see the effects of corrupt governments striving to force favored superstitions upon the dupes of other religions. No intellectual blindness but that which will not see, could prevent your seeing palpably, that all religion, except that of Nature, is the accursed thing which occasions and perpetuates the deadly feuds between man and man; and creates those insane animosities which embitter and poison all the natural sweets of this fair world. Such fatal results must be inevitable whilst man has the credulous folly to maintain in idleness and luxury, myriads of his own species whom his labor educates, as it were, for the express purpose of deceiving him. These are the professors of the pretended science of supernaturals, _alias_, nonentities, or at all events of unproved existences, of which the most illiterate hind knows just as much as the proudest hierarch. The _principle_ of priestcraft being unchangeable, the countries where this freshly modified superstition first gained a footing had been kept in deep ignorance by the old mythology,* so that the hierarchy of the new were safe in going any lengths in multiplying absurdities; for nothing can ever be monstrous enough to shake the credulity of the vulgar populace;** so prodigies of all dimensions grew common, and every cunning impostor, who found himself able to deceive others, had inspirations from heaven--turned priest, and dealt in supematurals; knowing well that where mental imbecility has been successfully fostered by the craft, it is sheer silliness to be scrupulous about the means of deception, however monstrous.*** "Be joggled mob! you are the tools That priests do work with, called fools."