Milman, in his _History of Christianity_, says: “It was admitted and avowed that to deceive into Christianity was so valuable a service as to hallow deceit itself.” He further says in the same historical work, “That some of the Christian legends were deliberate forgeries can scarcely be questioned.” There is not a Bible manuscript or version that has not been manipulated by ecclesiastics for century after century. Many of these priests were both ignorant and vicious. From the fifth to the fifteenth century crimes not fit to be mentioned prevailed among the clergy. Dr. Lardner says that Christians of all sorts were guilty of fraud, and quotes Cassaubon as saying, “In the earliest times of the Church it was considered a capital exploit to lend to heavenly truth the help of their own inventions.” Dr. Thomas Burnet, in a Latin treatise intended for the clergy only, said, “Too much light is hurtful to weak eyes;” and he recommended the practice of deceiving the common people for their own good. I _know_ that this same policy is in vogue in our day. This same nefarious doctrine of the exoteric and esoteric, one thing for the priest and another for the people, is far from being dead in this nineteenth century. It has always been, and now is, the real priestly policy to keep the common people in ignorance of many things; and if all do not accept the maxim of Gregory, that “Ignorance is the mother of Devotion,” many ministers _privately_ hold in our day that “where ignorance is bliss ’Tis folly to be wise.” 3d. The third article of impeachment, under the general charge of infidelity is, that sacerdotalists teach dogmas which they do not believe themselves. They do not all believe, _ex animo_, the distinctive dogmas of the orthodox creeds—that God is angry with the great body of mankind, that his wrath is a burning flame, and that there is, as to a majority of men, but a moment’s time and a point of space between them and eternal torture more terrible than imagination can conceive or language describe. It is well said that “Actions speak louder than words;” and we need only ask the question, “Do ministers who profess to believe these horrible dogmas preach as if they really believed them?” Notice the general deportment of the clergy at the summer resort, at the seaside, or on the mountain-top, and say whether they can possibly believe what for eight or nine months they have been preaching in their now closed churches. Listen to the private conversation of our evangelists at the camp-meeting or at the meetings of ecclesiastical bodies, and then conclude, if you can, that they believe what they teach.