. Just as soon as a specific is found
for a disease, that disease will be left out of the list of prayer. The
number of diseases with which God from time to time afflicts mankind,
is continually decreasing. In a few years all of them will be under the
control of man, the gods will be left unarmed, and the threats of their
priests will excite only a smile.

The science of medicine has had but one enemy--religion. Man was afraid
to save his body for fear he might lose his soul.

Is it any wonder that the people in those days believed in and taught
the infamous doctrine of eternal punishment--a doctrine that makes God a
heartless monster and man a slimy hypocrite and slave?

The ghosts were historians, and their histories were the grossest
absurdities. "Tales told by idiots, full of sound and fury, signifying
no thing." In those days the histories were written by the monks, who,
as a rule, were almost as superstitious as they were dishonest. They
wrote as though they had been witnesses of every occurrence they
related. They wrote the history of every country of importance. They
told all the past and predicted all the future with an impudence that
amounted to sublimity, "They traced the order of St. Michael, in France,
to the archangel himself, and alleged that he was the founder of a
chivalric order in heaven itself. They said that Tartars originally came
from hell, and that they were called Tartars because Tartarus was one of
the names of perdition. They declared that Scotland was so named after
Scota, a daughter of Pharaoh, who landed in Ireland, invaded Scotland,
and took it by force of arms. This statement was made in a letter
addressed to the Pope in the fourteenth century, and was alluded to as
a well-known fact. The letter was written by some of the highest
dignitaries, and by the direction of the King himself."

These gentlemen accounted for the red on the breasts of robins, from the
fact that these birds carried water to unbaptized infants in hell.

Matthew, of Paris, an eminent historian of the fourteenth century, gave
the world the following piece of information: "It is well known that
Mohammed was once a cardinal, and became a heretic because he failed in
his effort to be elected pope;" and that having drank to excess, he fell
by the roadside, and in this condition was killed by swine. "And for
that reason, his followers abhor pork even unto this day."

Another eminent historian informs us that Nero was in