hey could, and some succeeded in
making it brutally plain, that in losing my faith in the
supernaturalistic dogmas of traditional Christianism, as they are
literally interpreted in the doctrinal standards of the orthodox
churches, I had lost the pearl of great price.

My soul told me that I had never possessed this jewel, but that, even
with the little time and enfeebled strength that remained to me, I might
yet find it, if only I should cease looking for it in the field of
supernaturalism, under the direction of divine authority, and begin
looking for it in the field of naturalism, under the direction of human
reason.

Happily, where faith went out courage came in, and it increased with my
desperation until (though standing on the shore of death where the deep
and unknown stream lies darkly between the present and future) I could
and I did undertake the supreme task of my life--the breaking of the
chains by which I was bound as a slave to the degrading superstition
that I was, both by an inherited and cultivated disposition, a doomed
man, and by an inherent weakness, a helpless one with no power to
emancipate myself.

Of such enslaving chains I mention three among the strongest, the
severed parts of which, with those of all the rest, now lie scattered
about me: (1) the chain of the fear of God; (2) the chain of the fear of
the devil, and (3) the chain of the fear of man.

Hitherto I had been a child, thinking as a child, understanding as a
child and speaking as a child.

Henceforth I was to be a man, the greatest, conscious, personal being
who has anything to do with this world; and as a man, I put away the
things of a child, especially the most childish of all things, fear, the
fear of God, the fear of devil and the fear of man.

Preachers of the supernaturalistic interpretations of religion say that
the fear of God is salvation. It is damnation. No one who has fear of
any conscious, personal master whomsoever or wheresoever, God in heaven,
devil in hell or man on earth, is free or other than a slave. Nor has
any such attained to the full stature of manhood.

There is only one fear which saves and that is the fear of ignorance.
The world's destroyer-god is ignorance. There is no other devil on earth
or in hell below it, and this one lives, moves and has his being in the
fear of knowledge.

The world's saviour-god is knowledge. There is no other Christ on earth
or in any heaven above it, and this one lives, m