devils. The moment it is admitted that all
phenomena are within the domain of the natural, the necessity for a
priest has disappeared. Religion breathes the air of the supernatural.
Take from the mind of man the idea of the supernatural, and religion
ceases to exist. For this reason, the church has always despised the
man who explained the wonderful. Upon this principle, nothing was
left undone to stay the science of medicine. As long as plagues and
pestilences could be stopped by prayer, the priest was useful. The
moment the physician found a cure, the priest became an extravagance.
The moment it began to be apparent that prayer could do nothing for the
body, the priest shifted his ground and began praying for the soul.

Long after the devil idea was substantially abandoned in the practice
of medicine, and when it was admitted that God had nothing to do with
ordinary coughs and colds, it was still believed that all the frightful
diseases were sent by him as punishments for the wickedness of the
people. It was thought to be a kind of blasphemy to even try, by any
natural means, to stay the ravages of pestilence. Formerly, during the
prevalence of plague and epidemics, the arrogance of the priest was
boundless. He told the people that they had slighted the clergy, that
they had refused to pay tithes, that they had doubted some of the
doctrines of the church, and that God was now taking his revenge. The
people for the most part, believed this infamous tissue of priestcraft.
They hastened to fall upon their knees; they poured out their wealth
upon the altars of hypocrisy; they abased and debased themselves; from
their minds they banished all doubts, and made haste to crawl in the
very dust of humility.

The church never wanted disease to be under the control of man.
Timothy Dwight, president of Yale College, preached a sermon against
vaccination. His idea was, that if God had decreed from all eternity
that a certain man should die with the small-pox, it was a frightful sin
to avoid and annul that decree by the trick of vaccination. Small-pox
being regarded as one of the heaviest guns in the arsenal of heaven,
to spike it was the height of presumption. Plagues and pestilences were
instrumentalities in the hands of God with which to gain the love and
worship of mankind. To find a cure for disease was to take a weapon from
the church. No one tries to cure the ague with prayer. Quinine has been
found altogether more reliable