"So well known were those horrid vices to be carried on by Christians
in their nocturnal and secret assemblies, and so certain it was thought
that every one who was a Christian participated in them, that for a
person to be known to be a Christian was thought a strong presumptive
proof that he was guilty of these offenses.... It would appear,
however, that, owing to the extreme measures taken against them by
the Romans, both in Italy and in all the provinces, the Christians, by
degrees, were forced to abandon entirely in their Agapæ infant murders,
together with every species of obscenity, retaining, nevertheless,
some of them, such as the kiss of charity, and the bread and wine,
which they contended was transubstantiated into real flesh and blood."
In the remote districts of Christian Russia, where the rays of
our civilization have not yet penetrated the darkness of theology,
where Bible morals are still supreme, we are told that even at the
present time a more terribly real form attaches to this eucharistic
ceremony. From Harper's Weekly I quote the following:
"We hear of horrid sects at present in Russia, practicing cannibal and
human sacrifices with rites almost more devilish than any recorded in
history. 'The communism of the flesh of the Lamb' and 'the communism
of the blood of the Lamb' really seem to have been invented by the
lowest demons of the bottomless pit. The subject is too revolting to
be pursued in detail; it is enough to say that an infant seven days
old is bandaged over the eyes, stretched over a dish, and a silver
spoon thrust into the side so as to pierce the heart. The elect suck
the child's blood--that is 'the blood of the Lamb!' The body is left
to dry up in another dish full of sage, then crushed into powder and
eaten--that is 'the flesh of the Lamb!'"
Witchcraft.
I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it recognizes
as a verity the delusion of witchcraft and punishes with death its
victims.
The God that inspired the account of Saul's interview with the
witch of Endor was as thorough a believer in witchcraft as the most
superstitious crone of the Middle Ages.
Manasseh "used enchantments, and used witchcraft, and dealt with a
familiar spirit, and with wizards" (2 Chron. xxxiii, 6).
Isaiah speaks of "wizards that peep and mutter" (Isa. viii, 19).
Samuel (1 Sam, xv, 23) and Micah (v, 12) and Nahum (iii, 4) and Paul
(Gal. v, 20) all admit the reality of witchcraft.
The decline in the belief of wizards and witches denotes a decline of
faith in the Bible. Until a very recent period, those who professed
to believe in the divinity of the Bible also professed to believe in
the reality of witchcraft. "Giving up witchcraft," says John Wesley,
"is, in effect, giving up the Bible" (Journal, 1768).
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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