When a system of morals is based upon such a pretension, it can only be hurtful; unless, as is largely the fact, the healthy human _instinct_ unconsciously rejects the error. Still, great harm is done--must be done. And how much of prevailing licentiousness and barbarism may be placed to account of this false system cannot be defined. It is the immediate father of _Atheism_. Men reject the tremendous assumptions and believe nothing. But tender consciences, those in whom the divine faculty is large and clear, in general, directed by a true consciousness, simply disregard the horribly false things and attach themselves to the true. In this, vindicating the nobility of nature, which rises to its true recognition of the Sovereign Lord, _in spite_ of surrounding errors. But, others, not so strong, delicate in conscience and feeble in mind, become the victims of this dreadful system. Thus it is also the father of _Idolatry_. For these victims, fearful of eternal destruction, place themselves entirely in the hands of the Bonzes, and adore all the gods and observe all the _rites_. They cannot be sure, of themselves, that they do properly _Believe_; a thing of a very mysterious nature, concerning which (as I have remarked) the contention is ceaseless. Nor can these victims of the Superstition, ardent _devotees_ though they be, always obtain satisfactory _evidence_ that their _Salvation_ is sure. Then follow the self-imposed penances, and the sacrifices imposed by the Bonzes. They are _victimised_ by the Bonzes in an endless variety of ways. Some build Temples; some go about begging, in mean garbs, to get money for the _poor_ Bonzes; and the like; much as we see among our superstitious devotees. Superstition merely reproduces its natural effects, varied according to the circumstances. Still there remain those poor creatures to whom no escape is possible. They struggle in vain with the dark doubts which envelop them. They believe in all the horrors of their worship: that but a few are saved from hell; that goodness, charity, self-sacrifice, gifts to the Temples, to the poor, even to the Bonzes--_nothing avails_. Unless they have _believed_ and been duly accepted and enrolled among the _Elect-few_, they are merely children of the Devil, awaiting death, when they become his associate in _Fires of the tormented_, for ever and ever! These poor wretches feel already all the _horrors_ of the damned. They find no solace in a moral life; no peace in a grateful heart, turned to a benign, Heavenly Father. To yield to the natural emotions, to indulge in this peace, is vanity--is to be ensnared in the wiles of the enemy of Souls!