to renewed discussion. Luther was describing his frequent interviews with the devil in his bed room. Demons and witches were poisoning the air, and bringing calamity and misfortune, against which there was but one safeguard and remedy, reading texts of scripture and prayer. But however the sects might differ in their understanding of the sacred language, upon a number of things they were all agreed; every text of scripture was to be taken literally; heresy could not be too severely punished; a curtailment of the pleasures of life increased the chances of heaven; the world was a “sink of iniquity” destined for early destruction, and presided over by a God who never smiles, and troubled by a devil who never sleeps, the latter with millions of offspring, man pursuing demons, inflicting insanity, sickness and many other of the misfortunes of life. In these beliefs the two churches were in entire accord and must equally answer for the miseries and cruelties they have inflicted upon humanity in enforcing them. Theories and doctrines so persistently advanced and upheld by both churches, and which have proved so disastrous to humanity do not properly belong, and should have no place in Christianity. They are not only without the authority of the Master, but are mostly in opposition to his teaching and example. The most harmful of them owe their origin to the fables and myths introduced into the sacred book second-hand from Egyptian and Oriental sources, centuries before the Christian era, and it is not surprising that legends due to the faculty of romance in the minds of some barbarous Assyrians or Pharos, far back in the cradles of humanity, when introduced as foundations for rules of life, and as explanations of the mysterious processes of nature along the whole line of human advancement should have been constantly rejected and denied by the reasoning portion of mankind, and it is scarcely conceivable that now, within a few months of the twentieth century, they should be upheld by both churches as inspirations of the Deity. Not so surprising either when we consider that for seventeen centuries, the undeveloped minds of youth in all Christendom, have been moulded into the acceptance of beliefs, which, had they been presented without that gradual absorption in which reason takes no part would have been long ago rejected on account of their improbability. In no place is this better understood than among the churches, and as a consequence, they have been in perpetual contention with each other for the early education of youth.