erly
ignored; thought was a poor slave; an ignorant priest was master of the
world; faith put out the eyes of the soul; the reason was a trembling
coward; the imagination was set on fire of hell; every human feeling
was sought to be suppressed; love was considered infinitely sinful;
pleasure was the road to eternal fire, and God was supposed to be happy
only when his children were miserable. The world was governed by an
Almighty's whim; prayers could change the order of things, halt the
grand procession of nature; could produce rain, avert pestilence,
famine, and death in all its forms. There was no idea of the certain;
all depended upon divine pleasure--or displeasure, rather; heaven was
full of inconsistent malevolence, and earth of ignorance. Everything
was done to appease the divine wrath; every public calamity was caused
by the sins of the people; by a failure to pay tithes, or for having,
even in secret, felt a disrespect for a priest. To the poor multitude
the earth was a kind of enchanted forest, full of demons ready to
devour, and theological serpents lurking, with infinite power, to
fascinate and torture the unhappy and impotent soul. Life to them was
a dim and mysterious labyrinth, in which they wandered weary, and lost,
guided by priests as bewildered as themselves, without knowing that at
every step the Ariadne of reason offered them the long lost clue.

The very heavens were full of death; the lightning was regarded as the
glittering vengeance of God, and the earth was thick with snares for
the unwary feet of man. The soul was supposed to be crowded with the
wild beasts of desire; the heart to be totally corrupt, prompting only
to crime; virtues were regarded as deadly sins in disguise; there was a
continual warfare being waged between the Deity and the devil for the
possession of every soul, the latter generally being considered
victorious. The flood, the tornado, the volcano, were all evidences of
the displeasure of heaven and the sinfulness of man. The blight that
withered, the frost that blackened, the earthquake that devoured, were
the messengers of the creator.

The world was governed by fear.

Against all the evils of nature there was known only the defense of
prayer, of fasting, of credulity, and devotion. Man, in his
helplessness, endeavored to soften the heart of God. The faces of the
multitude were blanched with fear, and wet with tears; they were the
prey of hypocrites, kings and p