"It is important here to bear in mind one or two facts, in order to realize what an engine of corruption this secret organization of the _Illuminati_ was. One fact is, the high popularity which these secret societies at that period enjoyed. It was unbounded. There is something which commends such secret organizations most powerfully to the depraved human nature. Men love them because they are secret, and because they can wield such tremendous power. The other fact to be considered, is the absence, to a such vast extent, of the controlling elements of true religion in the European mind, and its predisposition to skepticism. The Reformation of the Sixteenth Century had broken the shackles of priestly Papal superstition over the human mind; and [true] evangelical doctrine not being introduced to supply the vacuum, the mass swung readily over from the regions of dark superstition to blank atheism. Thus were the elements ready prepared to hand for such spirits as Voltaire, D'Alembert, Diderot, Weishaupt, and others, to work upon, and by reason of their secret powerful agencies, to mould to their own liking. "It was now this damning system of infidelity, under the specious name of philosophy, light, and science, spread with such untiring industry over the European mind, that unhinged the whole framework of society, and prepared it, like a vast magazine, for an awful explosion. All the principles that held society together in the fear of God and future retribution--regard for human law--respect for magistrates, parents, and the marriage-tie--yea, in the very distinctions of virtue and vice, had been unsettled or taken away. They had been reasoned down and laughed out of the world; and when these only restraints, which God has imposed upon human selfishness and passion were removed, what was then to hold back those fierce passions and that deep selfishness from the most unbounded excesses? God was no more feared--government was no more sacred--religion was a delusion--immorality was a lie--virtue was a name--the marriage-tie was a farce--modesty was refined voluptuousness: and when men were persuaded of these things, society began to roll and heave under the long swells of that portentous storm of wrath which was soon to break, in all its desolating fury, over the earth."