What ghastly fruits these teachings have produced! We see earth covered with the yellow bones of murdered heretics and scholars; we see the persecutions and butcheries of Constantine, of Theodosius, of Clovis, of Justinian, and of Charlemagne; we see the Crusades, in which nearly twenty millions perish; we see the followers of Godfrey in Jerusalem--see the indiscriminate massacre of men, women, and children--see the mosques piled seven deep with murdered Saracens--the Jews burnt in their synagogues; we see Coeur de Lion slaughter in cold blood thousands of captive Saracens; we see the Franks in Constantinople, plundering, ravishing, murdering; we see the Moors expelled from Spain; we see the murder of the Huguenots and Waldenses--the slaughter of German peasants--the desolation of Ireland--Holland covered with blood; we witness Smithfield and Bartholomew; we see the Inquisition with its countless instruments of fiendish cruelty; we see the Auto-da-fé, where heretics, clad in mockery, are led to torture and to death; we see men stretched upon the rack, disjointed, and torn limb from limb; we see them flayed alive--their bleeding bodies seared with red-hot irons; we see them covered with pitch and oil and set on fire; we see them hurled headlong from towers to the stony streets below; we see them buried alive; we see them hanged and quartered; we see their eyes bored out with heated augers--their tongues torn out--their bones broken with hammers--their bodies pierced with a thousand needles; we see aged women tied to the heels of fiery steeds--see their mangled and bleeding bodies dragged with lightning speed over the frozen earth; we see new-born babes flung into the flames to perish with their mothers, or with their mothers sewed in sacks and sunk into the sea; in short, on every hand, as a result of this book's teachings, we see hate, torture, death! But, thanks to the brave Infidels who have gone before, you, Bible moralists, can use these instruments of cruelty to silence heretics to Christianity no more. "Where are the hands which once for this foul creed, 'Mid flame and torture, made an Atheist bleed? Gone--like the powers your fathers used so well To send souls heavenward through the flames of hell. And you, poor palsied creatures! you, ere long, With them thrice cursed shall swell Gehenna's throng. Your God is dead; your heaven a hope bewrayed; Your hell a by-word, and your creed a trade; Your vengeance--what? A mere polluting touch-- cripple striking with a broken crutch!" CHAPTER XXXIV. CONCLUSION.