About the beginning of the nineteenth century, a boy by the name of Thomas Aikenhead, was indicted and tried at Edinburgh for having denied the inspiration of the Scriptures, and for having, on several occasions, when cold, wished himself in hell that he might get warm. Notwithstanding the poor boy recanted and begged for mercy, he was found guilty and hanged. His body was thrown in a hole at the foot of the scaffold and covered with stones. Prosecutions and executions like this were common in every Christian country, and all of them were based upon the belief that an intellectual conviction is a crime. No wonder the Church hated and traduced the author of the "Age of Reason." England was filled with Puritan gloom and Episcopal ceremony. All religious conceptions were of the grossest nature. The ideas of crazy fanatics and extravagant poets were taken as sober facts. Milton had clothed Christianity in the soiled and faded finery of the gods--had added to the story of Christ the fables of Mythology. He gave to the Protestant Church the most outrageously material ideas of the Deity. He turned all the angels into soldiers--made Heaven a battlefield, put Christ in uniform, and described God as a militia general. His works were considered by the Protestants nearly as sacred as the bible itself, and the imagination of the people was thoroughly polluted by the horrible imagery, the sublime absurdity of the blind Milton. Heaven and hell were realities--the judgment-day was expected--books of account would be opened. Every man would hear the charges against him read. God was supposed to sit on a golden throne, surrounded by the tallest angels, with harps in their hands and crowns on their heads. The goats would be thrust into eternal fire on the left, while the orthodox sheep, on the right, were to gambol on sunny slopes forever and forever. The nation was profoundly ignorant, and consequently extremely religious, so far as belief was concerned. In Europe, Liberty was lying chained in the Inquisition--her white bosom stained with blood. In the new world the Puritans had been hanging and burning in the name of God, and selling white Quaker children into slavery in the name of Christ, who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me." Under such conditions progress was impossible. Some one had to lead the way. The Church is, and always has been, incapable of a forward movement. Religion always looks back. The Church has already reduced Spain to a guitar, Italy to a hand-organ, and Ireland to exile. Some one not connected with the Church had to attack the monster that was eating out the heart of the world. Some one had to sacrifice himself for the good of all. The people were in the most abject slavery; their manhood had been taken from them by pomp, by pageantry and power. Progress is born of doubt and inquiry. The Church never doubts--never inquires. To doubt is heresy--to inquire is to admit that you do not know--the Church does neither.