Thus may a bloodless victory be won, And Satan's hosts cast out forevermore; The cross of hell from earth will disappear Before the symbol of a higher sphere; Thus may the reign of reason be begun, And earth become to Heaven an open door. Oh! let the scales fall from the eyes of men, And all the horrors of the cross appear; Then Satan's reign on earth will have an end, And men no more the craven knee will bend; But Justice, Freedom, Love, and Truth, will then Bring in the prophesied millennial year. [Illustration] THE CROWN. Symbol of all that's mean and base in man-- Of pompous pride and cringing cowardice, Of titled folly and of plodding slaves, Of groaning labor robbed by cunning knaves, Of priests and lordlings, an infernal clan, Who live by force, and fraud, and artifice. The crown, associated with the cross, Is held up by the church as the reward Of souls that blindly follow in the lead Of priests who advocate a stupid creed! "A crown of gold," and nothing else, for loss Of common sense, full payment can accord! "No cross, no crown"--self-evidently true, But not in the delusive sense implied; If men beneath the cross would not bow down, No devil, pope, or king, could wear a crown; But they will wear it all the ages through That men are willing to be crucified. A crown denotes that some usurper rules, And subjects, weak and ignorant, submit; But in a realm where all are equal, free, No one can rule, none can submissive be; But hell and tyrants love to torture fools, And only fools will long consent to it. The weak in mind, abused and plundered here, Have silly hopes that they will all be kings, Because the sons of Mammon tell them so; While to the yoke they bow their necks below, They praise a tyrant in another sphere Who is to crown them over underlings! When hell's dark agents nailed the Nazarene Upon the cross they, mocking, hailed him king; Since then the mockery they have kept up, And all his friends have drank the bitter cup, And worn the crown of thorns, and felt the keen Thrust of the spear, and heard the taunting fling. All seekers after truth, and right, and fact, The men of science and the thinkers bold, Are friends of Christ, and seek to do his work, By letting in the light mid darkness murk, That shrouds the cross and crown; but every act Is met by hell's dark minions, as of old.