What is it that has poisoned love amongst the human species, and rendered the simple union of the sexes an unnatural bond of tyranny and slavery,** which, in nine cases in every ten, entails life-lasting misery upon the victims of the indissoluble marriages of Christian superstition! * Vide Matt x., 84. ** In the headlong inexperience of youth, the sexes, under an innocent impulse of Nature, enter into the perpetual snare of marriage, with tempers and dispositions as different as are their sexes; and in a state of penury scarcely able to subsist themselves, they engage to give subsistence to a numerous family. Here is the beginning of that unhappy state of matrimonial life which exhibits the darkest portraiture of human existence--a procreative nest of nuptial misery. But as that abject condition of toilworn bondage mainly entails and fosters ignorance, by allowing the laborer no leisure for the cultivation of his mind, it has ever been cherished as the safeguard of "Church and State" despotism. All these questions are answered in five words:--_the artificial religion of priestcraft_. So shall the priest-ridden world go on, till "From the lips of truth one mighty breath, Shall, like a whirlwind, scatter in its breeze The whole dark pile of human mockeries." [Publishers' Note.]--Since this was written vast changes have been made in England in the laws relating to marriage and divorce, and if Logan Mitchell could rewrite this he would probably be satisfied with such increased facilities for divorce as exist now in the State of Massachusetts, coupled with more complete recognition by the law of the parental rights of the mother. END OF LECTURE SECOND. LECTURE THIRD. THE CHRISTIAN FATHERS, AND THEIR DOGMAS On the back-ground appeared the Christian fathers, rearing a form of superstition the most sanguinary and destructive of human happiness that has ever afflicted the world. Her limbs bestrode the prostrate nations to the extremities of the earth; her head lowered to the clouds, whilst the right hand of the gigantic monster brandished a burning torch. Beware of a bull before, a horse behind, _and a priest all round_. Old Proverb.