h 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."

In the facts here presented it may be seen how far we are justified in
applying to them this first vial of wrath. The vial was poured out "upon
the earth"--on the inhabitants of the ten kingdoms when in a state of
tranquility. This was their condition, unsuspicious of danger, when the
dread infection was spread through society. According to the testimony
of Pres. Dwight, within ten years from the first establishment of the
Illuminati, in 1776, "the