Only a few years ago, in the province of Novgorod, Russia, a woman was burnt for witchcraft. Agrafena was a soldier's widow, and possessed of more than ordinary gifts of mind. But ignorance and superstition prevailed around her. Every strange occurrence, every disease that could not be accounted for, was the result of witchcraft. One day a farmer's daughter was seized with some violent disease, and in her paroxysms of pain she chanced to breathe the name of Agrafena. That was enough; Agrafena was a witch. A mob was raised and led to the widow's dwelling. They called her to the door, parleyed with her a moment, then thrust her back into the house, fastened its doors, and set it on fire. And while it was burning, this mob, led by Christian priests, stood around it, singing praises to God--their strains blended with the shrieks of this dying woman--dying because the Bible says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." And in our own America the blighting influence of this delusion and this brutal statute has been felt. With the soil of our Republic is mingled the dust of murdered women--murdered because the Bible says, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live." CHAPTER XXIX. SLAVERY--POLYGAMY. Slavery. I refuse to accept the Bible as a moral guide because it sanctions the infamous crime of human slavery. "Both thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the heathen that are round about you; of them shall ye buy bondmen and bondmaids. Moreover, of the children of the strangers that do sojourn among you; of them shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you, which they begat in your land; and they shall be your possession. And ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after you, to inherit them for a possession; they shall be your bondmen forever" (Lev. xx. v, 44-46). In certain cases they were even permitted to enslave the members of their own race. "If thou buy a Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, the wife and her children shall be her master's and he shall go out by himself" (Ex. xxi, 2-4). If he desires his liberty he must desert his wife and little ones. To become a freeman he must become an exile. "And if the servant shall plainly say, I love my master, my wife, and my children; I will not go out free, then his master shall bring him unto the judges; he shall also bring him unto the door, or unto the door-post; and his master shall bore his ears through with an awl; and he shall serve him forever" (5, 6). "And he said, Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be unto his brethren. "And he said, Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall be his servant.