aying for luck in hunting
or in fighting. And yet it strikes me--we have our army chaplains
before a battle praying for the success of our side. They don't pray
for assistance if our cause is just, but they pray, "Lord help us!" I
can't see the difference between the two.

But there is this said in favor of prayer that, whether successful or
not, it is a sort of intellectual exercise. Like a man trying to lift
himself, he may not succeed, but he gets a good deal of exercise.

But as man proceeds, he begins to help himself and to take advantage of
mechanical powers to assist him, and he begins to see he can help
himself a little, and exactly in the proportion he helps himself he
comes to rely less on the power of priest or prayer to help him. Just
to the extent we are helpless, to that extent do we rely upon the
unknown.

As religion developed itself, keeping pace with the belief in theology,
came the belief in demonology. They gave one being all the credit of
doing all the good things, and must give some one credit for the bad
things, and so they created a devil. At one time it was as
disreputable to deny the existence of a devil as to deny the existence
of a God; to deny the existence of a hell, with its fire and brimstone,
as to deny the existence of a heaven with its harp and love.

With the development of religion came the idea that no man should be
allowed to bring the wrath of God on a nation by his transgressions,
and this idea permeates the Christian world today. Now what does this
prove? Simply that our religion is founded on fear, and when you are
afraid you cannot think. Fear drops on its knees and believes. It is
only courage that can think. It was the idea that man's actions could
do something, outside of any effect his mechanical works might have, to
change the order of nature; that he might commit some offense to bring
on an earthquake, but he can't do it. You can't be bad enough to cause
an earthquake; neither can you be good enough to stop one. Out of that
wretched doctrine and infamous mistake that man's belief could have any
effect upon nature grew all these inquisitions, racks and collars of
torture, and all the blood that was ever shed by religious persecution.

In Europe the country was divided between kings and priests. The king
held that he got the power from the unknown; so did the priests. They
could not say that they got it from the people; the people would deny
it; the unk