* "Knowledge is called infidelity: .... Hence the few who knew Aught worth recording, and were fools enough To vent their free opinions, what has been Their recompense and their reward? The stake, The fagot and the cross." --Goethe's "Faust." Infidelity--we say; but to what? To vulgar superstitions enforced. How does he incur the implacable vengeance of the theologians? Because his search after truth, in the paths of Nature, has a direct tendency to overturn that monstrous fabric of delusion, which enables so many hundreds of thousands of them to live in ease and luxury, at a prodigious expense to human industry. Why do the aristocracy and the rich of the land persecute and pursue him to ruin? The aristocracy being, in point of fact, the national rulers, as such, have hitherto considered it necessary to support some kind of superstition (any sort does equally well for the ignorant and vulgar), perceiving that, by an iniquitous confederacy with its priesthood for mutual support, the strongest arm of bad government is created. Moreover, the ranks of the hierarchy are recruited by scions from aristocratical stocks, who are called by the "Holy Ghost," to receive revenues sufficient for "_the attraction of gentlemen_" and whether these be younger sons, brothers, blackguards, or blockheads, it is all the same--they are good enough for Mother Church. This is a powerful--an almost irresistible scheme for fostering ignorance and falsehood--for upholding the foul connexion between Church and State, and for perpetuating the mental slavery of the people. The cause of truth and the welfare of society call loudly for the exposure of these enormous corruptions; and the dangerous task will be hailed and encouraged by every true friend to human improvement, as the surest means of banishing from amongst men the blasting and demoralizing belief in supenaturalism, for that is the principal, if not the sole source of all the moral evils on the face of the earth.