The church teaches the existence of the supernatural. It believes in the divine sleight-of-hand--in the "presto" and "open sesame" of the Infinite; in some invisible Being who produces effects without causes and causes without effects; whose caprice governs the world and who can be persuaded by prayer, softened by ceremony, and who will, as a reward for faith, save men from the natural consequences of their actions. The church denies the eternal, inexorable sequence of events. What Good has the Church Accomplished? It claims to have preached peace because its founder said, "I came not to bring peace but a sword." It claims to have preserved the family because its founder offered a hundred-fold here and life everlasting to those who would desert wife and children. So, it claims to have taught the brotherhood of man and that the gospel is for all the world, because Christ said to the woman of Samaria that he came only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and declared that it was not meet to take the bread of the children and cast it unto dogs. In the name of Christ, who threatened eternal revenge, it has preached forgiveness. Of what Use are the Orthodox Ministers? They are the enemies of pleasure. They denounce dancing as one of the deadly sins. They are shocked at the wickedness of the waltz--the pollution of the polka. They are the enemies of the theatre. They slander actors and actresses. They hate them because they are rivals. They are trying to preserve the sacredness of the Sabbath. It fills them with malice to see the people happy on that day. They preach against excursions and picnics--against those who seek the woods and the sea, the shadows and the waves. They are filled with holy wrath against bicycles and bloomers. They are opposed to divorces. They insist that for the glory of God, husbands and wives who loathe each other should be compelled to live together. They abhor all works of fiction, and love the Bible. They declare that the literary master-pieces of the world are unfit to be read. They think that the people should be satisfied with sermons and poems about death and hell. They hate art--abhor the marbles of the Greeks, and all representations of the human form. They want nothing painted or sculptured but hands, faces and clothes. Most of the priests are prudes, and publicly denounce what they secretly admire and enjoy. In the presence of the nude they cover their faces with their holy hands, but keep their fingers apart. They pretend to believe in moral suasion, and want everything regulated by law. If they had the power, they would prohibit everything that men and women really enjoy. They want libraries, museums and art galleries closed on the Sabbath. They would abolish the Sunday paper--stop the running of cars and all public conveyances on the holy day, and compel all the people to enjoy sermons, prayers and psalms.