expressly declared 'Atheism did never perturb states; for it makes men
wary of themselves as looking no further.' [76:1] Can the same be said
of religion? Will any one have the hardihood to say religion did never
perturb states, or that the times inclined to religion (as the times of
Oliver Cromwell) were civil times, or that it makes man wary of
themselves as looking no further? During times inclined to religion more
than one hundred thousand witches were condemned to die by Christian
tribunals in accordance with the holy text, thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live. During times inclined to religion it was usual to burn,
broil, bake, or otherwise murder heretics for the glory of God, and at
the same time to spare the vilest malefactors. During times inclined to
religion, it has been computed that in Spain alone no less than 32,382
people were, by the faithful, burnt alive; 17,690 degraded and burnt in
effigy; and all the goods and chattels of the enormous number of 291,450
consigned to the chancery of the Inquisition. [77:1] In short, during
those 'good old times,' men yielded themselves up to practices so
strangely compounded of cruelty and absurdity, that one finds it
difficult to believe accounts of them, however well authenticated.

Speaking of the bigotted fury of certain ecclesiastics, Hippolyto Joseph
de Costa, in his 'Narrative of the persecution' he suffered while lodged
gratis by the Portuguese Inquisition for the pretended crime of Free
Masonry, says, it would exceed the bounds of credulity, had not facts in
corroboration of it been so established by witnesses, that nothing can
shake them. Among ecclesiastics of this denomination we may mention that
Pontiff, who, from a vile principle of hate for his predecessor, to whom
he had been an enemy, as soon as he ascended the Papal chair directed
the corpse to be taken out from the grave, had the fingers and the head
cut off and thrown into the sea, ordered the remainder of the body to be
burnt to ashes and excommunicated the soul. Could revenge be carried
farther than in this instance? The institution itself of the inquisition
and the cruelty with which its members persecute those whom they suspect
of tenets different from their own, may well excite surprise. In their
eyes the tortures and the death of their fancied enemies are a mere
amusement. They burn some of their prisoners alive, render their
memories infamous, and prosecute their children and all the connect