The Priests knew it would be useless to spend their time in declamation, in anathemas, in denunciation, against such as would not from mercenary motives, or good sense, pay tithes, and feed the idol of superstition; to enforce their doctrines, to support their extortion, to effect their unholy rapine, they fallaciously promulgated posthumous torture; they invented a Hell, to agonize, to rack, to torment such as would not help to support the imposition. The Priests know their Hell is not a place of actual existence, but a bugbear, and the Devil, the head master, is invented, is used as an emptying-pocket tool; such as do not believe this pick-pocket machinery, such as do not suffer themselves to be duped, misled, and plundered, by hypocrites, swindlers, rogues, and extortioners, are reproached as criminals, as sinners, as blasphemers, as infidels, and as lunatics, and doomed to suffer everlasting torture. Is it likely that a just, wise, and benevolent Deity would thus unmercifully punish innocent men for refusing to contribute to the lasciviousness, licentiousness, and drunkenness, of a vagabond, blaspheming Priesthood? there is no greater impiety than attributing such enormity to a wise and parental God! The profanity of Priests cannot be sufficiently deprecated for alledging such monstrous injustice to the Deity, and asserting that he has more horrible powers, principles, and actions than the Devil; the latter is generous, brave, and forbearing, compared with their God, to whom they attribute malice, revenge, cruelty, fallacy, and persecution to a whole race of people because a poor, ignorant, exhausted woman happened to rob an apple-tree, as he permits school-boys to do with impunity daily: even the Priests must allow he does not think so much of his apples as formerly. The Priests should build altars and offer apples to the Lord to act consistently. The Priests are famous mathematicians; they can demonstrate that one is equal to three, or that three equals one; three eternals is equal to one eternal, and one holy equal to three holies! To please the Deity is to act consistent with his ways; his desire, his intention, his object, is manifested in the organization of nature, and as independence and equality are the predominating features in nature, so those who most strenuously advocate those principles are the most religious, the most patriotic, the most praiseworthy among men.